BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 24th - 27th May 2007

www.buitoni.ie www.ifi.ie BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 24th - 27th May 2007 FILM TIMES

PRE-FESTIVAL ITALIAN FILMS SHOWING AT THE IFI

1 Sunday 13 May 1.00pm 8 /2 (Otto e mezzo) 1.30pm The Spivs (I vitelloni)

Saturday 19 May 1.30pm The Leopard (Il gattopardo)

Sunday 20 May 1.30pm The Leopard (Il gattopardo) INTRODUCTION Throughout May, Ireland will see a whole series of events celebrating Italian culture. This film event consists of seven recent films including ’s epic BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL tribute to Italian cinema, My Voyage to . Thursday 24 May 6.50pm Our Land (La terra) Running throughout the weekend is ’s new film , his latest film since The Consequences of Love, that proved such a hit at the IFI two years ago. Friday 25 May 6.15pm The Family Friend (L’amico di famiglia)

In addition, the weekends leading up to the festival are given over to films cited as key Saturday 26 May 1.30pm Along the Ridge (Anche libero va bene) works by Scorsese and other experts on Italian cinema, two Fellini classics, and Visconti’s 5.00pm The Family Friend (L’amico di famiglia) wonderful The Leopard. 6.00pm But When Do the Girls Show Up? (Ma quando arrivano le raggazze?) The event is organised in collaboration with the Italian Embassy in Dublin, and the IFI would 9.00pm The True Legend of Tony Vilar also like to acknowledge the assistance of Film Italia, RAI Trade, The Italian Trade (La vera leggenda di Tony Vilar) Commission and the Italian Cultural Institute.

Our deepest gratitude goes to Buitoni with whom we have had the pleasure of working Sunday 27 May 12.00pm My Voyage to Italy (Il mio viaggio in Italia) previously. Their interest in making the events they are associated with a success is absolute, 12.30pm As the Shadow (Come l’ombre) and their financial and creative investment has been key to the inauguration of an Italian 5.00pm But Forever in My Mind (Come te nessuno mai) cultural cornerstone for our calendar. 6.30pm The Golden Door (Nuovomondo) 6.45pm The Family Friend (L’amico di famiglia)

POST-FESTIVAL ITALIAN FILMS SHOWING AT THE IFI

A TASTE OF ITALY comes to the IFI on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th May Monday 28 May 1.30pm, 6.15pm The Family Friend (L’amico di famiglia) As well as the finest of Buitoni pasta dishes specially prepared for the festival at the IFI Tuesday 29 May 1.30pm, 6.15pm The Family Friend (L’amico di famiglia) restaurant, film-goers will be treated to a free food and wine tasting on stalls in the IFI Atrium: Fumagalli ham; Gattinara wines from Travaglini and Brunello, Montepulciano Wednesday 30 May 1.30pm, 6.15pm The Family Friend (L’amico di famiglia) and Brut wines from Gavioli; coffee from Saeco; chocolate and sweets from Ferrero. Thursday 31 May 1.30pm, 6.15pm The Family Friend (L’amico di famiglia)

All screenings are at the IFI, 6 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. Tickets from www.irishfilm.ie or 01 679 3477 or in person at the IFI.

1 BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2 Our Land The Family Friend (La terra) (L’amico di famiglia)

Director: Sergio Rubini Director: Paolo Sorrentino May 24 (6.50) May 25-31

A compulsively watchable combination of lopsided Italian comedy and Southern film noir, The skewed emotions and cool images of The Consequences of Love already announced Paolo La terra is the most energetic and appealing of director-actor Sergio Rubini’s eight movies to Sorrentino as a director who dares to be different. Indeed, this striking follow-up positively baits date. heads a bold cast as an exiled son who returns to his native Puglia and the audience by making the central character a loathsome 70-year-old small-time money-lender finds himself thrust into the role of capo famiglia. who puts the squeeze on his unfortunate clients while claiming he’s got their best interests at heart. Though the mafia is not involved here, the clever screenplay by Rubini and his co-writers has a lot of other things to say about the violence that ails the South. Luigi Di Santo (Bentivoglio) has Giacomo Rizzo’s Don Geremia de Geremei is a piece of work all right, but as he skitters around lived in Milan since, as a teenager, he accidentally killed his father. As the curtain rises, he steps with one arm in a cast and an ever-dangling plastic bag, he’s also one of the year’s most off a train in the deserted, sun-bleached town where he grew up. He intends to spend only a memorable screen characters, totally assured in his worldview that life’s cruel and only the few days to sign some papers so he and his three brothers can sell the farmland they inherited. greedy prosper. Until, that is, he meets his match in the statuesque Rosalba (), But the town immediately draws him into its intrigues. His wacky businessman brother Michele whose father has been reduced to seeking Geremei’s services to pay for her wedding. For the (Emilio Solfrizzi) is fixated on running for political office, though he’s up to his ears in debt to price of a sexual favour, she beats down the interest rate on the loan to a fraction of the quoted local money-lender Tonino (Rubini). The violent Tonino is also linked to Luigi’s hot-headed half- 100 percent, and she may not be finished yet. brother Aldo (Massimo Venturiello), who’s in love with Tonino’s Romanian mistress Tania (Alisa Bystrova). When Tonino is shot during an eerie night-time religious procession, both brothers fall It’s hard not to squirm when watching the elderly lecher fall on youthful flesh, but Sorrentino’s under suspicion. prepared to hold the viewer at a distance so we can form our own moral assessment of the protagonist’s self-serving imperatives. Moreover, he’s got the visual language to put Geremei’s As a director, Rubini, who started in 1990 with the notable The Station, takes a giant leap perceptions in context, whether it’s poring over Fellini-esque grotesquerie, or recalling early Dario forward compared with undistinguished recent efforts and puts his finger on the crass Argento in the strangely unsettling architectural exteriors. Cut together to keep us in constant foolishness of contemporary Italy. surprise, this is maverick movie-making to be sure. Treasure it while you can.—Trevor Johnston.

ITALY, 2006. SUBTITLED. COLOUR. DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO. 112 MIN. ITALY, 2006. SUBTITLED. COLOUR. ANAMORPHIC. DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO. 105 MIN.

3 BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 4 Along the Ridge But When Do the Girls Show Up? (Anche libero va bene) (Ma quando arrivano le ragazze?)

Director: Director: May 26 (1.30) May 26 (6.00)

Tommi (Alessandro Morace) is an 11-year-old who lives with his sister Viola (Marta Nobili) and An important figure in Italian cinema since the 1970s, writer-producer-director Pupi Avati has father Renato (writer-director Kim Rossi Stuart). It is a family that is struggling to stay afloat, with made horror movies, historical dramas and comedies. Despite their range, his films are highly the father trying to work (as a cinematographer) and look after his kids, while at the same time distinctive and personal, with autobiographical elements unobtrusively woven into the narratives. trying to cope with debts. The children’s mother is an occasional, disturbing presence. Unreliable The deceitfulness of human nature, the unpredictability of relations between men and women, and fickle, she returns to the household for brief periods and then abandons her family for other and a fascination with the mysterious and the fantastic are concerns that define what Italian relationships. All of this we see through the eyes of Tommi, who wants his family to be back critics have dubbed the ‘Avati genre’. together and has a growing, slightly envious relationship with a boy who has just moved into the same apartment block and who comes from a much more stable and affluent family. But When Do the Girls Show Up? is a semi-autobiographical tale about the soaring dramas and bitter rivalries of youth and what happens when boyhood bonds are tested in adult life. Using this situation as the basis for the drama, well-known actor (he starred in the recent Musicians Gianca (Paolo Briguglia) and Nick () meet on a train bound for the and The Keys to the House) and now impressive debut director Kim Rossi Umbria Jazz Festival. Though Gianca’s years of musical training contrast sharply with Nick’s untutored talent, the two become friends on their return to . They form a band, but Stuart fashions an honest, deeply affecting and heartfelt story. There are no easy answers in this Nick’s natural talent catapults him into a successful career while Gianca is forced to pursue other all too believable scenario, and Along the Ridge is way beyond soap opera because of its avenues. Years later, the men’s friendship is put to the test when Nick returns to Bologna for a intelligence, its use of the urban landscapes of and the astonishing quality of the concert. The relationship between the two men is complicated by Nick’s involvement with performances, especially that of Alessandro Morace, who plays Tommi in a completely natural Gianca’s girlfriend, whose own ambiguous attitude sums up the complex web of loyalties, and sensitive way.— Adrian Wootton. betrayals and other feelings that Avati explores with humour and sensitivity. The film builds to a wonderful climax at Nick’s concert, which brings the three characters together again to face the music as Nick plays a song Gianca wrote years ago in a spirit of friendship.

Director Pupi Avati will introduce this film and participate in a post-screening discussion.

ITALY, 2006. SUBTITLED. COLOUR. DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO. 108 MIN. ITALY, 2005. SUBTITLED. COLOUR. ANAMORPHIC. DOLBY STEREO SR. 106 MIN.

5 BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 6 BAKED CAMEMBERT & PESTO

UNWRAP CAMEMBERT AND SLICE OFF TOP RIND . R ETURN TO THE BOX . RIZZLED PESTO GENOVESE AND SPRINKLE WITH PINE NUTS . AKE INB A PREHEATED OVEN (220 C) FOR 10-15 MINUTES . C OOL SLIGHTLY AND SERVE WITH CRUSTY BREAD.

Voted best tasting

pesto in independent

blind taste tests* *O TEFRE TE EDN BRANDS LEADING OTHER UTPERFORMED

More recipe ideas at www.buitoni.ie The True Legend of Tony Vilar My Voyage to Italy (La vera leggenda di Tony Vilar) (Il mio viaggio in Italia)

Director: Giuseppe Gagliardi Director: Martin Scorsese May 26 (9.00) May 27 (12.00)

Shown at the Rome and Tribeca film festivals, director Giuseppe Gagliardi’s first feature is an Apart from being a great film-maker, Martin Scorsese is also a highly respected teacher and amusing yet thoughtful ‘mocumentary’ about legendary singer Tony Vilar. cinema historian who is a leader in the campaign for film preservation. One of his many current projects is a full restoration of ’s Once Upon a Time in the West, a labour of love Antonio Ragusa left Calabria in southern Italy for Argentina in 1952 at the age of 14. A chance which can be seen as an extension of this wonderful 2001 documentary tribute to Italian cinema. performance in a local bar in Buenos Aires led to a meteoric rise to fame and an undisputed status as South America’s leading crooner. Ragusa adopted the stage name Tony Vilar and Standing on the roof of his childhood home in New York, Scorsese recounts how he saw many gained worldwide fame with the song ‘Cuando calienta el sol’ before mysteriously vanishing Italian films as a boy on his parents’ small black-and-white TV and was fascinated by the magic from the public eye. and emotion of these classics. He talks about the Italian historical epics such as Cabiria (1914), (1941) and Fabiola (1949), noting that their texture and detail made them much Gagliardi’s film stars Peppe Voltarelli, front-man of the cult Italian band Il Parto delle Nuvole more convincing than their Hollywood counterparts. Pesanti, who composed the film’s original music and co-wrote the script with Gagliardi. Peppe’s character in the film has been brought up on stories of his mythical distant cousin and sets out Scorsese then moves on to concentrate on the key post-war movement known as Italian neo- to trace Vilar and discover the reason for his disappearance. His journey takes him to Italian realism. After providing excellent introductions to key directors such as , Vittoria communities from Buenos Aires to New York, as he gradually closes in on Vilar and the secret De Sica and , Scorsese serves up detailed commentaries on their major works. that abruptly changed his life. The fate of the emigrant Italian community in Germany was the He is particularly strong in his defence of neo-realism as a philosophical art movement that was subject of Gagliardi and Voltarelli’s 2003 documentary Doichlanda. In the new film they blend an entirely appropriate response to the damage the Second World War did to Italy. There’s also a 1 the true story of Vilar with Peppe’s fictional investigation to explore the Italian communities of brilliant tribute to (I vitelloni inspired ; 8 /2 is one of Scorsese’s the New World, who maintain the values and images of the Old Country handed down by their favourite films) and an invaluable appreciation of Antonioni’s modernist masterpieces of the parents and grandparents. Gagliardi includes elements of the road-movie, musical and 1960s. Like the work it celebrates, Scorsese’s own epic film is touched by greatness. documentary genres to create a humorous and thought-provoking exploration of Italian identity and the nature of success.

Director Giuseppe Gagliardi and producer Sarah Pennachi will introduce this film and participate in a post-screening discussion.

ITALY. 2006. SUBTITLED. COLOUR. DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO. 92 MIN. U.S.A.-ITALY, 2001. COLOUR. DOLBY STEREO. 246 MIN.

9 BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 10 As the Shadow But Forever in My Mind (Come l’ombra) (Come te nessuno mai)

Director: Marina Spada Director: May 27 (12.30) May 27 (5.00)

Within the confines of the ancient city of Naples, past and present nestle together. Aside from its Before finding success in Hollywood with the recent vehicle , ancient traditions, it is also a cosmopolitan, contemporary city and one where different director Gabriele Muccino made a series of excellent films about Italian society as seen through nationalities of immigrants ebb and flow. As the Shadow tells the story of an ordinary young the eyes of different generations. His first major work, the delightful But Forever in My Mind, is a woman who works in a travel agency and out of casual interest begins to attend a Russian class. superior coming-of-age comedy which Muccino scripted with help from his younger brother Truth be told, she is as much interested in the Russian professor as she is in the language, but Silvio and Adele Tulli, who were both 16-year-old students at the time. Their input perhaps adds her pursuit of him leads to an experience which shocks her out of her everyday routine. to the genuineness, immediacy and the affection evident in the film’s observation of school years, early sexual yearnings and romantic convictions about changing the world. The professor, exploiting the woman’s attraction to him, persuades her to look after his beautiful ‘cousin’, supposedly just for a few days, while he is away on a job out of the city. This sparks a A large group of teenage activists are occupying their high school as part of a protest against subtle, surprising journey for the travel agent, who is plunged into circumstances alien to her privatised education and greater standardisation among students. Stirred by the excitement, and into parts of the city she barely recognises or understands. This is a beautifully made, Silvio (Silvio Muccino) finds himself drawn to fellow student Valentina (Giulia Carmignani) and skilfully executed first feature that takes an unusual and refreshingly non-didactic approach on impulsively kisses her. As news of his indiscretion spreads through the school, Silvio’s confused the issues of European migration. — Adrian Wootton. emotions run riot. Adding to the turmoil, his parents—themselves former 1960s radicals now comfortably absorbed into the complacent middle-class—begin pressuring him to communicate with them more, while his brother wants romantic advice and his sister reveals a big secret. Muccino whips all this emotional upheaval into an entertaining brew of tender comedy. Beginning with the riot squad’s arrival to break down the student barricades, the director deftly manipulates the tone to introduce a more melancholy undercurrent which serves to heighten the warmth and emotional impact of the lovely climactic stretch.

ITALY, 2006. SUBTITLED. COLOUR. DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO. 87 MIN. ITALY, 1999. SUBTITLED. COLOUR. DOLBY STEREO SR. 88 MIN.

11 BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 12 PRE-FESTIVAL ITALIAN FILMS SHOWING AT THE IFI

1 8 /2 The Spivs The Leopard (Otto E Mezzo) (I vitelloni) (Il gattopardo) The Golden Door Director: Federico Fellini Director: Federico Fellini Director: Luchino Visconti (Nuovomondo) May 13 (1.00) May 13 (1.30) May 19, 20 (1.30)

Director: Emanuele Crialese As a film about a famous director ‘Vitelloni’ literally means ‘overgrown Prince Salina (a towering performance May 27 (6.30) (Guido, played by Fellini regular calves’, a typical Fellini coinage to by Burt Lancaster) is coming to ) struggling to describe a group of petit bourgeois, recognise that his society must adapt 1 make a new opus, 8 /2 certainly invites stay-at-home young men in a in order to survive. He collaborates in a personal reading. Its title refers to provincial seaside town. They think an arranged marriage between his An imaginative, intelligent and attractive Italian film precisely when the country needs it, the number of films Fellini had they’re something, and the film opportunistic nephew (Alain Delon) directed up to then; Guido is, like manages to be both pitiless and and the low-born daughter (Claudia Emanuele Crialese’s Golden Door represents a solid piece of cinema that neither panders nor Fellini, a of international sympathetic in showing that they’re Cardinale) of a wealthy trader who is 1 preaches. Moving from rural Sicily to third-class steerage to Ellis Island, this tripartite tale of a repute. Yet 8 /2 can be taken as a not. Leopoldo (Leopoldo Trieste) a symbol of the new social order. family’s journey from the Old World to the New propels them from a superstitious past into a metaphor of much wider significance. thinks he’s a writer but spends his Everything comes together in one of colder-eyed modernity. It recreates, with all the frustrations time eyeing the girl next door. Alberto the most remarkable set-pieces in all and vicissitudes, the experience of () struts about, unable to cinema: an extended ball sequence trying to come to terms with the see that he’s utterly dependent on his during which the Prince’s The opening moments reaffirm Crialese’s affinity for landscape (he made Respiro). A barefoot world, to make sense of it. mother and sister. Franco (Franco acknowledgement of the new order is Salvatore (Vincenzo Amato) and his older son Angelo (Francesco Casisa) scramble up a rocky Fabrizi) has to get married but just confirmed by the waltz he shares with can’t stop womanising. his nephew’s fiancée. mountainside with stones in their mouths as proof of their devotion to the wooden cross at the ITALY, 1963. SUBTITLED. ITALY-FRANCE, 1953. SUBTITLED. ITALY, 1963. SUBTITLED. top. Set against this unforgiving topography, the two seem part of a primitive world where BLACK AND WHITE. 139 MIN. BLACK AND WHITE. 103 MIN. COLOUR. ANAMORPHIC. 187 MIN. superstition controls daily actions. Against his mother’s wishes, Salvatore decides they must emigrate to America. Crialese details their first journey from village to city, which entails a monumental leap from the familiar, earthy world they know. Incongruously standing among FESTIVAL ON TOUR ITALIAN FILMS SHOWING IN THE EYE CINEMA GALWAY them at the docks is Lucy (Charlotte Gainsbourg), dressed in bourgeois clothes and speaking English. Crialese leaves her background a mystery but makes it clear that she’s willing to use her Monday 28 May 7:30 pm Tuesday 29 May 7:30 pm Wednesday 30 May 7:30 pm feminine charms to get on that ship and get to America. The True Legend Three Days of For the immigrants, America was a land of miracles, and since Crialese stops the drama literally of Tony Vilar Anarchy at the exit portals of Ellis Island, disillusionment never takes hold. Claire Denis’ regular (La vera leggenda di (Tre giorni di anarchia) cinematographer Agnès Godard does her usual splendid work in capturing the visual riches, Tony Vilar) from Sicilian landscapes to the corral-like bins of Ellis Island.—Jay Weissberg. Director: Federico Fellini Director: Giuseppe Gagliardi Director: Vito Zagarrio

A young journalist ignores his Local musician Peppe heads of in July 1943. Fascism has collapsed, adoring girlfriend to pursue his search of a famous Italian crooner and a little Sicilian village celebrates, preoccupation with celebrities. who shot to fame in South America, as young Giuseppe decides what to and then disappeared. do with himself.

ITALY-FRANCE, 2006. SUBTITLED. COLOUR. ANAMORPHIC. DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO. 117 MIN. EYE Cinema, Wellpark, Galway. Tel: 091 780 078 www.eyecinema.ie

13 BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 14 BUITONI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 24th - 27th May 2007

Thurs 24 May La Terra (Our Land) 25-31 May L’amico di famiglia (The Family Friend) Sat 26 May Anche libero va bene (Along the Ridge) Ma quando arrivano le raggazze? (But When Do the Girls Show Up?) La vera leggenda di Tony Vilar (The True Legend of Tony Vilar) Sun 27 May Il mio viaggio in Italia (My Voyage to Italy) Come l’ombre (As the Shadow) Come te nessuno mai (But Forever in My Mind) Nuovomondo (The Golden Door)

www.buitoni.ie www.irishfilm.ie

Tickets available at Irish Film Institute, 6 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. Box Office 01 679 3477 www.irishfilm.ie