Italian Cinema Today

Lincoln Center described Pietro Marcello as “quietly redefining contemporary Italian cinema.” While the filmmaker says that the neorealist masterpieces of Vittorio De Sica have moved him to tears, he has charted a dramatically different course while drawing deeply from those cinematic roots. Born in 1976 in Caserta, Italy, Marcello attended Naples’ renowned Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied painting. Finding himself drawn to storytelling, he launched the radio program “Il tempo dei Magliari” and began experimenting with documentaries. “Carta” and “Scampia” were among his first short films.   In 2004, he completed the documentary “Il cantiere,” which was awarded the top prize at the 11th edition of the Libero Bizzarri Film Festival, a celebration of cinema named after the late journalist and screenwriter.     Marcello took it to the next level in 2007 when the Venice Film Festival premiered his documentary “Il Passaggio della Linea” (Crossing the Line). The poetic jo...

Photo by Georges Biard The daughter of two cinema icons, she’s led an extraordinary life as a model, actress, voice-over artist, writer, director, and now an organic farmer. Isabella Rossellini was born in 1952 to Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian director Roberto Rossellini . She has a twin sister named after her mother and an older brother, Robertino Ingmar, whom she often joins in retrospectives celebrating their legendary parents.  When she talks about her childhood, she does so with a wistful nostalgia. She fondly recalls time spent with them while acknowledging their long absences when their demanding careers required them to travel, leaving her and her siblings at home.  In the 1996 documentary “The Hollywood Collection: Ingrid Bergman Remembered,” Rossellini describes herself as a ball of energy. Her parents often had to tell her to quiet down because they were reading or working on a film project. When they’d leave, she enjoyed having the run of the hou...

Free Spirits of Mario Martone's Capri Revolution on the coast of Gaeta “Città del Cinema” (City of Cinema) is a recent nickname given to a former fortress for the Roman Empire.  Located on the southern end of Rome’s region of #Lazio and bordering Naples' region of #Campania, Gaeta boasts picturesque mountainous shorelines and centuries-old structures. Scenes from Saverio Costanzo's HBO series  L'amica geniale ( My Brilliant Friend) were filmed in July along the city's seascapes .  The director shot scenes from the first season and returned to film scenes with director Alice Rohrwacher, his girlfriend and collaborator. The set was closed and for the most part, hidden from public view. The scenes were shot on the beach and in the sea. There's speculation that the scenes are part of a vacation plot of the two friends, Elena and Elisa, played by actresses Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace.  Click here   to see a few photos of the shoot taken from...

Born in Florence in 1981 to an Italian mother and German Father, Rohrwacher attended Torino University, where she graduated with a degree in Classic Literature. Her first jobs after college included writing for theater and playing music.  She entered the film industry as an editor of documentary films before directing her first feature, "Corpo Celeste" (Heavenly Body), the tale of a teenage girl painfully assimilating into the culture of southern Italy and the Roman Catholic Church. The film premiered at Cannes Film Festival's Directors' Fortnight in 2011 and won several international film festivals before being released in the United States.  Rohrwacher's second feature, "Le meraviglie" (The Wonders), follows a family of beekeepers living in isolation in the Tuscan countryside. The dynamic of their overcrowded household is disrupted by the arrival of a  troubled teenage boy taken in as a farmhand. At the same time, a reality TV show (featuring a host ...

Update May 19, 2018 Two Italian filmmakers were awarded prizes at Cannes - Best Screenplay went to Alice Rohrwacher for Lazzaro Felice .. Best Actor went to Marcello Fonte for his role in Matteo Garrone’s Dogman & Gianni Zanasi's comedy Lucia’s Grace was named Best European Film in the Directors’ Fortnight Stefano Savona's Samouni Road won the L'Oeil d'or for Best Documentary given by the French Society of Multimedia Authors ( Scam ) Congratulations! Original Post Five Italian films made the official program of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival plus one in the Directors' Fortnight category. They are: AS IT IS ON EARTH by Pier Lorenzo Pisano: Cinéfondation Selection The village was small, and now it's even smaller; only four houses still standing and a street. There is no one around. Nobody to say "hi" to, no one to whine about the heat to. The earthquake didn't even spare the sound of breathing. The stor...