Open Roads: New Italian Cinema at Lincoln Center 2023

[Chris Knipp]

LIKE TURTLES/COME LE TARTARUGHE (Monnica Dugo 2022)

Veteran Italian actress Monica Dugo's directorial and writing debut, starring her, depicts a woman who moves for a time into the family wardrobe (like a turtle hibernating in winter) after her husband and the father of their children leaves. A charming, whimsical, wise, if a bit fangless film.

[Chris Knipp]

STRANGENESS/LA STRANEZZA. (Roberto Andò 2022)

Luigi Pirandello returns to Sicily and watching a vigorous amateur theater troupe is inspired to create his masterpiece SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR. Starring Toni Servillo and Sicilian comedy team Ficcara and PIcone.

[Chris Knipp]

LORD OF THE ANTS/IL SIGNORE DELLE FORMICHE (Gianni Amelio 2022)

An important 1968 Rome trial about homosexuality (under the cover of "plagio" or mental domination) with three good actors, Luigi Lo Cassio, Elio Germano, and wonderful newcomer Leonardo Maltese. Not quite up to Amelio's best work but significant.

[Chris Knipp]

LEOPARDI/LEOPARDI:IL GIOVANE FAVOLOSO (Mario Martone 2014)

This is part of the series celebrating the films of Mario Martone, and belongs in an Italian film series both for a remarkable, engaging performance by Elio Germano and for its slightly overblown but wonderful celebration of the physically tormenting but explosively creative life of Italy's greatest poet of the nineteenth century.

SHOWN Monday, June 5 at 9:00pm

[Chris Knipp]

TROUBLING LOVE/L'AMORE MOLESTO (1995)

Of the three Mario Martone films shown to feature him at this year's series this is the most gorgeous and cinematic. In the Walter Reade Theater's 9 pm June 6 screening it was breathtaking. However it became also baffling. It feels like in their reverence for the revered author Elena Ferrante whose first novel this adapts, they tried to include everything and the result is confusion.

SHOWN Tuesday, June 6 at 9:00pm

[Chris Knipp]

LINKS TO REVIEWS:
Chiara (Susanna Nicchiarelli, 2022)
Delta (Michele Vannucci, 2022)
Dry/Siccità (Paolo Virzì, 2022)
Fireworks/Stranizza d'amuri (Giuseppe Fiorello, 2023)
Hummingbird, The/Il Colibrì (Francesca Archibugi, 2022) OPENING FILM
Like Turtles/Come le tartarughe (Monica Dugo, 2022)
Lord of the Ants/Il signore delle formiche (Gianni Amelio, 2022)
Margins/Margini (Niccolò Falsetti 2022)
My Summer with the Shark/Denti da squalo (Davide Gentile, 2023) WORLD PREMIERE
Princess (Roberto De Paolis, 2022)
Strangeness/La stranezza (Roberto Andò, 2022)
Leopardi/Leopardi: il giovane favoloso (Mario Martone, 2014)
Nostalgia (Mario Martone, 2022)
Troubling Love/L'amore molesto (Mario Martone, 1995)