NEW ITALIAN CINEMA in San Francisco, November 2018
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Filmleaf will again provide coverage of this Italian film event (press release):
The Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco +
New Italian Cinema Events (N.I.C.E) of Florence, Italy Present:
New Italian Cinema
November 30-December 2, 2018
At the Vogue Theatre in San Francisco
SERIES WEBSITE
FILMLEAF FESTIVAL COVERAGE
Opening Night Film
Francesco Falaschi’s As Needed (Quanto basta)
A Comic Drama And Culinary Road Trip To Florence,
Starring Vinicio Marchioni As A Charming Veteran Chef, Valeria Solarino As A Social Worker, And Luigi Fedele As An Aspiring Young Chef With Asperger’s.
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The Italian National Syndicate Of Film Journalists Awarded The Graziella Bonacchi Award To Luigi Fedele For His Exceptional Performance In This Film
That Celebrates Neurodiversity.
San Francisco, CA — The Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco (Istituto Italiano di Cultura) and New Italian Cinema Events (N.I.C.E. of Florence, Italy present New Italian Cinema, November 30 – December 2, 2018. The festival opens on Friday, November 30 and continues Saturday, December 1 and Sunday, December 2 at the Vogue Theatre, 3290 Sacramento Street in San Francisco. Celebrating its 22nd year in San Francisco, this annual presentation of dynamic cinema will bring Italy’s newest directors and the country’s veteran filmmakers to Bay Area audiences, who will have an opportunity to experience the richness of Italy’s cinematic treasures. Film tickets: $14 general; $13 seniors, students and persons with disabilities; $12 Italian Cultural Institute members. Passes: $60 for Italian Cultural Institute members and $70 for the general public. Box office info: (415) 552-5580 or www.newitaliancinema.org.
New Italian Cinema is known for presenting the work of filmmakers who are embarking on their feature filmmaking careers. Six dramatic features by up-and-coming directors—a number of whom will be in attendance—are featured in the City of Florence Award competition. The City of Florence Award, which honors a first or second feature by an Italian director, will be decided by audience ballot at the festival. In addition to the six features in competition, New Italian Cinema will showcase dramatic films by veteran Italian directors, along with award-winning documentaries. New Italian Cinema continues its collaboration with Italy’s prestigious documentary festival, Festival dei Popoli, and will feature two of its award winning documentaries, The Call and Open to the Public together on Closing Night of the festival on Sunday, December 2, 2018.
“N.I.C.E. has been playing an important role for many years in the programming of new Italian cinema in the United States, with the dual purpose of presenting and promoting the first or second works of directors capable of stylistic hazard and exploring new thematic areas. N.I.C.E. is proud of presenting these films in San Francisco, particularly because of the originality and quality of the works,” said Viviana del Bianco, Director of the Florence based N.I.C.E.
“We are thrilled to bring the best of Italian cinema to Bay Area audiences. New Italian Cinema, and particularly our Opening Night film AS NEEDED, both showcase Italy’s passion for food and wine—two aspects of Italian culture that are world-renowned. This year’s festival also features exceptional documentaries that explore the humor and humanity of a cross section of Italy’s citizens. We invite the Bay Area to spend three days with us in Italy, without getting on a plane,” said Lorenzo Ortona, Consul General of Italy in San Francisco and Acting Director of the Italian Cultural Institute.
Food and Wine
What would an Italian film festival be without food and wine? This year’s festival includes three films highlighting food and wine: Francesco Falaschi’s Opening Night AS NEEDED, about a contest for young chefs; Antonio Padovan’s THE LAST PROSECCO, a witty thriller that unravels on the hills of Valdobbiadene, where Prosecco grapes grow; and Walter Bencini’s THE LAST ITALIAN COWBOYS, a beautifully lensed documentary love song to the Maremma region and a unique perspective on how the cowboys on an organic, free-range ranch carry out Italy’s slow food traditions.
A Salute to Tuscany
New Italian Cinema has a special relationship with Tuscany, Tuscan filmmakers and Tuscan film organizations. N.I.C.E., the lead programmer of New Italian Cinema is based in Florence. Both the Opening Night film, Francesco Falaschi’s AS NEEDED and Walter Bencini’s documentary THE LAST ITALIAN COWBOYS, about the men who work on one of the last wild cattle farms, are set in Tuscany. Documentary filmmaker Gianmarco D’Agostino’s short film THE WHOLE WORLD, ONE STEP AT A TIME is a portrait of a Tuscan man who moved to Bangladesh to work on building educational infrastructure there. Francesco Falaschi, Walter Bencini and Gianmarco D’Agostino all hail from Tuscany. And N.I.C.E. continues a long-standing relationship with Italy’s prestigious Florence based documentary festival, Festival dei Popoli, showcasing two of that festival’s award winners on Closing Night.
The festival is made possible by the generous support of: Jan Shrem & Maria Manetti Shrem, John & Karen Diefenbach, Romana Bracco, BAIA Business Association Italy America, L’Italo-Americano, Classical Pursuit, Home Instead, ItalFoods, Libreria Pino, Milaner, Montesacro Pinseria-Enoteca, Superga, Veer & Wander, Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco, MiBACT, and the Italian Consulate General of San Francisco.
Special Screenings – Eventi Speciali:
Opening Night Film, Friday, November 30, 6:30pm at the Vogue Theatre
AS NEEDED (Quanto Basta), 92 minutes
Directed by Francesco Falaschi
Tickets: General Public $14; Seniors, Students, Disabled: $13; Italian Cultural Institute members: $12; Children (under 16): $10.
The Opening Night Film at the Vogue Theatre on Friday, November 30 at 6:30pm is the award winning comic drama AS NEEDED (Quanto Basta). Francesco Falaschi’s delightful romp takes us on a culinary road trip to Florence, culminating in a contest for young cooks. Arturo (Vinicio Marchioni) is a veteran chef with minor anger management problems who, after a short stint in prison, performs community service at a school for teens with Asperger’s. His students are eager to learn, especially Guido (Luigi Fedele), a young man who remembers every ingredient in every recipe. Arturo delays his move to Milan to cook in a sleek restaurant when the opportunity arises to accompany Guido to a cooking competition in Tuscany’s capital. Complicating matters is the fact that the president of the jury, celebrity chef Daniel Marinari (Nicola Siri), is Arturo’s hated ex-business partner and Guido’s social worker, Anna (Valeria Solarino), is Arturo’s unexpected romantic love interest. As Arturo confronts his past and Guido faces the pressure of competition, their initially contentious relationship evolves into a friendship that make both question their values. The Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists awarded the Graziella Bonacchi Award to Luigi Fedele for his exceptional performance in this film that celebrates neurodiversity.
Director Francesco Falaschi will attend the screening.
Closing Night Films, Sunday, December 2, 7:15pm at the Vogue Theatre
THE CALL (La Convocazione) and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC (Aperti al Pubblico),
Two award-winning documentaries from Festival dei Popoli
Tickets: General Public $14; Seniors, Students, Disabled: $13; Italian Cultural Institute members: $12.
The festival is proud to close with two outstanding documentaries that won awards at Italy’s prestigious documentary film festival, Festival dei Popoli: THE CALL, directed by Enrico Maisto and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, directed by Silvia Bellotti. Director Silvia Bellotti will attend the Closing Night Screening. The Closing Night screening will also include the announcement of the festival’s City of Florence Award for the best feature film in competition.
THE CALL (La Convocazione), 56 minutes
Directed by Enrico Maisto
The police personally deliver notices to appear to jurors assigned to Milan’s Court of Assize, which tries the most notorious crimes and massacres in Italy. At 10 a.m., sixty tense Italians take their places in the court’s somber chamber, where the lead judge addresses them. THE CALL, a beautifully shot and scored cinema vérité film, observes with profound humanity these unknown jurors tasked with the highest civil responsibility. Enrico Maisto’s documentary is an exceptional chronicle of that special day when a citizen comes into direct contact with the administration of justice. The Call was awarded Best Mid-length Documentary at Hot Docs and the Premio MyMovies Audience Award at Festival dei Popoli.
Followed by (without an intermission):
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC (Aperti al pubblico), 60 minutes
Directed by Silvia Bellotti; director in person on Closing Night
The social housing authority of Naples manages the 40,000 public housing units of the city and province. Its offices, open twice a week, become the stage of vigorous verbal arguments between the employees—whose task is to apply norms and regulations with impartiality—and the multitudes of applicants who need help with housing. The people who apply for assistance are a diverse and quirky group, often living in existential and personal conditions that defy classification, thus presenting cases that cannot be easily solved. The beleaguered but kind social workers, who are truly on the front lines dealing with Naples’ impoverished citizens, face the system’s deficiencies with creative solutions, open hearts, and occasionally fraying patience. Bellotti takes on the bureaucratic process with humor, pathos, and a keen sense of humanity. Open To The Public won the Premio del Pubblico (Audience Award) at the 2017 Festival dei Popoli.
City of Florence Award Competition films:
Boys Cry (La terra dell'abbastanza)
Directed by Fabio and Damiano D’Innocenzo, Sunday, December 2, 2:15pm, Vogue Theatre
Matteo Olivetti and Andrea Carpenzano turn in stellar performances as Mirko and Manolo, best friends who live with their single parents in a tough neighborhood of a Roman suburb. They are still in school, training to be caterers or barmen or something useful, and making minimum wage delivering pizzas. An accident sets off a chain of events, propelling them from good-natured, roughhousing buddies to thugs on the bottom rung of the local gang’s ladder, facing increasingly difficult choices.
Easy (Un viaggio facile)
Directed by Andrea Magnani, Saturday, December 2, 4:30 pm, Vogue Theatre
Isidoro, known as Easy, is lonely and depressed after an unexplained weight gain ends his career as a go-kart driver. When his brother Filo offers him a job so he can get out of the house and behind the steering wheel again, Easy accepts. The assignment seems simple, but the journey is epic: He has to ferry a coffin (containing the body of a worker) from Italy to a small village in the Carpathians, in Ukraine. Easy was nominated for Best Actor and Best New Director at the David di Donatello Awards and won the Jury Prize for Best Actor at the Monte Carlo Comedy Film Festival.
Here and Now (L’assoluto presente)
Directed by Fabio Martina, Friday, Saturday, December 1, 1:30 pm, Vogue Theatre
Three young friends drive through the dark streets of Milan in Cosimo’s new black SUV. Eager to live up to his aspired bravura, Cosimo suddenly stops the car near a park where he and his buddies attack a random passer-by—in a frenzy of blows and imagined power. The real protagonist of the film is the vague emptiness that crosses the faces and bodies of these young men. Here and Now, a modern-day I Vitelloni on steroids, is a compelling portrait of youth who roam the streets in search of meaning.
Hotel Gagarin (Hotel Gagarin)
Directed by Simone Spada, Saturday, December 1, 8:15 pm, Vogue Theatre
A crooked producer dupes five hopeful Italians into traveling to Armenia to shoot a film. Nicola (Giuseppe Battiston), a rumpled history teacher, can’t believe his script will actually be produced, while flighty Patrizia (Silvia D’Amico) embraces her unexpected acting career. Their shooting location, the secluded, wintry Hotel Gagarin, becomes home when they are marooned in Armenia for months because of a military skirmish. There, this fine ensemble cast (including Luca Argentero, Barbora Bobulova and Claudio Amendola) find unexpected opportunities for creativity and happiness. Preceded by the short film THE WHOLE WORLD, ONE STEP AT A TIME.
Manuel (Manuel)
Directed by Dario Albertini, Sunday, December 2 12:00 pm (noon), Vogue Theatre
At 18, after a five-year sojourn, Manuel leaves the education center where he was placed after his mother was jailed. He is unusually focused on his main objective: taking responsibility for his mother so that the two remaining years of her sentence will be commuted to house arrest. Shot in a neorealist style, Manuel features a stand out performance by Andrea Lattanzi as a sweet young man who desperately wants to do the right thing. MANUEL was a triple winner at the Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival (Best Film, Critics' Prize, and Student Jury Prize).
The Last Prosecco (Finché c'è prosecco c'è speranza)
Directed by Antonio Padovan, Saturday, December 1, 6:00 pm, Vogue Theatre
Antonio Padovan’s witty thriller unravels on the hills of Valdobbiadene, where Prosecco grapes grow. The film features Rade Serbedzija as a count fighting to protect his terroir and Giuseppe Battiston as a stubborn police inspector who has a murder to solve. The Last Prosecco has all of the elements of a good whodunit: politics, greed, multiple murders, and a cast of potential culprits, including the count’s mistress (Silvia D’Amico), his estranged South American daughter (Liz Solari), and his longtime housekeeper (Giselle Burinato). The Last Prosecco explores the lure of the vineyards, the effervescence of bubbles, and the conflict between those who are driven to exploit the environment and those who are called to protect it at all costs.
Documentary Presentations (in addition to the two Closing Night documentaries)
The Last Italian Cowboys (Gli ultimi butteri)
Directed by Walter Bencini, Saturday, December 1, 3:45 pm, Vogue Theatre
Walter Bencini’s beautifully shot documentary, a love song to the Maremma region of Italy, profiles the butteri, or cowboys, who work on one of the last ranches that breeds cattle and horses in the wild. Shot over the changing seasons in an area that stretches between southern Tuscany and northern Lazio, the film chronicles the lives of these amiable weather-beaten wranglers, their synchronicity with the rhythms of the land, and their relationship with the animals they steward. For anyone who loves the Tuscan countryside, this film’s exquisite lensing provides a close-up of sweeping vistas of the Tyrrhenian Sea, bucolic shots of cows (and the cowboys reciting their names), and a unique perspective on how an organic, free-range ranch carries out Italy’s slow food traditions.
The Whole World, One Step At A Time (Tutto il mondo piano piano)
Directed by Gianmarco D’Agostino, Saturday, December 1, 8:15 pm, Vogue Theatre
Many years ago, Rudy left his wealthy life in Italy, choosing to live in Bangladesh and assist homeless children there. His friend, Alex, joined him and together they built schools where poor children could receive education and healthcare. D’Agostino’s short documentary profiles the lives of Bangladeshi children, who are eager to learn in a harsh environment where access even to something as basic as potable drinking water is not assured. Together with their Bangladeshi counterparts, Alex and Rudy challenge poverty, corruption, and violence with care and love. This is a story about how every man can change his life by trying to change the world. The whole world, one step at a time.
THE WHOLE WORLD, ONE STEP AT A TIME screens before HOTEL GAGARIN.
Documentary Presentations from Festival dei Popoli
THE CALL (La convocazione)
Directed by Enrico Maisto
Italian citizens can be called to serve on juries on short notice: on the day before appearing for jury selection, they’re randomly selected by a computer system. And so, one morning at 10 o’clock, 60 tense Italians take their place in the Court of Assizes in Milan, which tries the most well known massacres and crimes in Italy. THE CALL observes these unknown jurors in a riveting example of cinema vérité. Director Enrico Maisto ratchets up the inevitable sifting and waiting inherent in the courtroom process with a remarkable emotional tension, exploring the court and its unique set of rules. We are presented with a cross section of citizens tasked with the highest civil responsibility, and who experience anxiety and pathos while fulfilling their duty. An exceptional chronicle of that special day when a citizen comes into direct contact with the administration of justice, THE CALL was awarded Best Mid-length Documentary at Hot Docs and the Premio MyMovies Audience Award at Festival dei Popoli.
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC (Aperti al Pubblico)
Directed by Silvia Bellotti
The social housing authority of Naples manages the 40,000 public housing units of the city and
province. Its offices, open twice a week, become the stage of exhausting verbal combats between the employees, whose task is to apply norms and regulations with impartiality and the multitudes of applicants who need help with housing. The people who apply for housing assistance are a diverse and quirky group who often live—whether by destiny or inclination—in existential and personal conditions that defy classification, thus presenting cases that cannot easily be solved. OPEN TO THE PUBLIC screened in the 2017 Festival dei Popoli and won the Premio del Pubblico (Audience Award) at the Festival dei Popoli.
Guests Invited
Each year the festival invites acclaimed Italian filmmakers and actors to participate in onstage Q&As following select screenings. Invited guests this year include Opening Night director Francesco Falaschi, AS NEEDED; Closing Night director Silvia Bellotti, OPEN TO THE PUBLIC; Andrea Magnani, director of EASY; and Gianmarco d’Agostino, director of THE WHOLE WORLD, ONE STEP AT A TIME.
Some notable guests from recent years have included actress screenwriter Salvatore de Mola, THE STUFF OF DREAMS (2017); Valentina Carnelutti, LIKE CRAZY (2016); Paolo Sorrentino, director of the Oscar®-winning film THE GREAT BEAUTY (2013); actress and director Valeria Golino (2012); Edoardo Ponti (2014); Carlo Virzì (2012)’ Silvio Soldini (2013); and Nanni Moretti (2011).
About the Italian Cultural Institute
Founded in 1978, the Italian Cultural Institute (Istituto Italiano di Cultura, or IIC) in San Francisco is an official branch of the Italian government, dedicated to the promotion of the Italian language and culture in the United States. http://www.iicsanfrancisco.esteri.it
About N.I.C.E
N.I.C.E., based in Florence, Italy, is a not-for-profit cultural organization founded in 1991 by a group of film professionals. It has grown into one of the most important expressions of Italian cinematography abroad. The goal of the organization is to promote New Italian Cinema abroad, through a series of film festivals and cultural exchanges.
About the City of Florence Award
Each year, six or seven dramatic features by up-and-coming directors are screened at New Italian Cinema and compete for the City of Florence Award. The City of Florence Award, which honors a first or second feature by an Italian director, will be decided by audience ballot in San Francisco and announced at a Closing Night presentation on Sunday, December 2, 2018.
Guests Expected
Francesco Falschi
Director
As Needed (Quanto Basta), Opening Night
Silvia Bellotti
Director
Open to the Public (Aperti al Pubblico), Closing Night
Gianmarco D’Agostino
Director
The Whole World, One Step at a Time (Tutto Il Mondo Piano Piano)
Andrea Magnani
Director
Easy (Un Viaggio Facile)
