Italian Cinema Today

Gianfranco Rosi's acclaimed documentary "Fuocoammare" (Fire at Sea) will be released in the United States on October 21.  The film, which won the prestigious Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, provides a poignant exploration of the European migrant crisis through the eyes of 12-year-old Samuele. Living on the island of Lampedusa, Samuele's daily life consists of school, slingshot shooting, and hunting. Despite his seemingly ordinary activities, he is surrounded by the sea and the harrowing stories of countless migrants who risk their lives to reach the island. Lampedusa has become a symbolic border of Europe, traversed by thousands of migrants over the past two decades in their quest for freedom. The documentary captures the stark contrast between Samuele's childhood innocence and the grave realities faced by those seeking refuge. The U.S. dates are as follows: New York Film Festival New York NY October 7 - October 8, 2016 Chicago Film Festival October 2...

Emanuele Crialese  Emanuele Crialese is one of the most inventive and poetic filmmakers working today. The messages in his films speak to the dreams and desires within the soul, and their breathtaking cinematography reveals the  pride he feels for a land to which he is deeply connected. Born in Rome in 1965, Emanuele Crialese’s Sicilian roots are the driving force to the plots of his movies. Crialese earned his degree at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.  He originally set out to take a short film course at the university but was granted a full scholarship after presenting a sample of his work. Much of Crialese’s career has been dedicated to exploring the plight of the immigrant, and the irony of this lies within the fact that while in New York City attending film school, he lived in a Lower East Side tenement, which was once occupied by immigrants during the immigration wave of the 20th century. One has to wonder if that experience has h...