Italian Cinema Today

Interview: Vito Facciolla - "Pasquale" Today is the day that we Italian cinema aficionados have been waiting for: Anime nere (Black Souls) officially opens on this side of the Atlantic. We meet Pasquale in the opening moments of Anime nere and he stays with us during the duration of the film, giving support and a bit of comedy relief to the characters as well as the audience as we all watch and digest the painful tones of  the story. Vito Facciolla is a Pugliese-born character actor with a wicked sense of humor and impeccable comic timing. He's appeared in a number of Italian films including, Kim Rossi Stuart's, Angel of Evil . However, it seems that Facciolla is really starting to hit his stride. He had a a key role in Ricky Tognazzi's recent RAI television movie, Pietro Mennea - La Freccia del Sud   and is experiencing international stardom with the success of Francesco Munzi's Anime nere . We have much more to discover about Vito Facciolla, b...

Directed by Ricky Tognazzi, "Pietro Mennea - La Freccia del Sud" is the biographical story of athlete-turned-politician, Pietro Mennea, also known as "La freccia del sud" (Arrow of the South) for his remarkable speed as an Olympic sprinter, in particular, the 200 meter in which he held the world record for almost 17 years. His record time of 19.72 seconds, set in September of 1979, is still the European record. "Si lo so non posso cambiarlo il mondo, però ci devo pensare" - I know that I can't change the world but I have to think that I can.-     Throughout the span of his multi-faceted career as an athlete, lawyer, sports agent and member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004, Mennea was known for his staunch values ​​and ethics. In his film, Tognazzi paints a portrait of this "Arrow of the South" as a somewhat stubborn, tenacious man with unyielding commitment, willing to make the necessary sacrifices to be the best that he could be,...