OPEN ROADS: NEW ITALIAN CINEMA, May 29- June 5, 2025

[Chris Knipp]

Open Roads 2025: best films.

I'd say it was a good year, ranging from the lighthearted and frivolous (CANONE EFFIMERO, WISING ON A STAR) to the serious and informative (a biopic, BERLINGUER/THE GREAT AMBITION, about Italian communist leader Enrico Berlinguer), but the quality seemed high throughout.

PATERNAL LEAVE (Alissa Jung 2025). The big Italian star Luca Marinelli is a surprise bravely playing an irresponsible dad confronted by his teenage daughter raised in Germany who's never seen him and doesn't speak a word of Italian. There are genuinely fresh and real moments here. Most of this is in some version of English. From the Berlinale.

CANONE EFFIMERO (Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio 2024). This eccentric documentary tour of Italy for local and folkloric music is not at all comprehsensive but has a quirky charm with its collection of polyvocal songs, music ethnology and oral tradition. Radically contemporary, energetic, close to nature, local. Lyrical. Won a special mention at the Berlinale.

WISHING ON A STAR (Peter Kerekes 2024). A local astrologer "cures" people's ills by doing arcane calculations on her clients and assigning them to go to some remote place to celebrate their birthdays and bring about the changes they dream of. This is a hybrid, tweaking footage of actual people and an actual astrologer, Luciana de Leoni D'Asparedo, of Udine in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. Premiered at Venice Orizzonti.

DIAMONDS/DIAMANTI (Ferzan Özpetek 2024). Sure it's glitzy and a bit catty and sometimes very broad, but this is a sincerre homage to women surrounding a famous costumer in Rome that has lots of stories to tell and is handsome to look at. A popular film in Italy, it won the audience award at the 2025 Donatello Awards.

THE TIME IT TAKES/IL TEMPO CHE CI VUOLE (Francesca Comencini 2024). There's deep Italian cinematic history here: this is an autobiographical film about herself as a tiny girl and her link with famous father Luigi Comencini, who made some of the signature movies of Italian "neorealismo rosa,"or pink neorealism, including famous films in the grand era of Italian postwar recovery and cultural triumph with great stars like Vittorio De Sica and Gina Lollabrigida. A poignant memory. From the Venice festival.