Italian Cinema Today

Through a series of stunning short films made for various Dolce & Gabbana advertising campaigns, Italian filmmaker and photographer Pepe Russo is showing the world the mystic beauty of the beloved city in which he was raised.  Born in 1977 in the fabled metropolis of Naples, Pepe Russo is the creative force behind some of Dolce & Gabbana’s most beautiful and poetic ad campaigns. The collaboration came about after Russo was discovered by Dolce & Gabbana co-founder Stefano Gabbana who ran across the young filmmaker’s projects on Instagram. Gabbana asked him to create something similar for his company that would “explain the DNA of their brand.” Up to that point, the campaigns had been shot mainly in Domenico Dolce’s home region of Sicily using high-profile filmmakers like Guiseppe Tornatore,   Martin Scorsese, Paolo Sorrentino and Monica Bellucci. Russo was thrilled and went right to work on his first project, which turned out to be a love story shot in blac...

Fred Kuwornu  describes himself as an activist-producer-director-speaker. He was born and raised in Italy by a culturally diverse family. His mother is an Italian Jew, and his father a Ghanaian surgeon who has lived in Italy since the 1960s. Kuwornu's experience as a struggling actor in Italy  made him aware of how few opportunities there are for people of color. It didn't seem that Italian filmmakers were interested in telling stories that didn't pertain to your average white person.  Although Kuwornu  is now based in the United States and has stepped away from the Italian film industry, I found his new documentary, "Blaxploitalian," to be a deeply personal assessment. Kuwornu carefully examines the Italian film industry and how people of color are portrayed. The film offers several different and interesting perspectives from a number of Italian actors and actresses of different origins.  Kuwornu   also gives his own perspe...

" Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.”  -Albert Einstein My great-grandparents shortly after arriving in America Most Italian-Americans in their 40’s are third generation, which means our great-grandparents were part of the 12,000,000 people with hopes and dreams who arrived on Ellis Island during the mass immigration of the early 1900’s. Many of us are lucky enough to have known at least one of those brave souls. In my case, it was my great-grandmother Rosa Maria Nigro who immigrated to western New York from Rionero in Vulture, located in Italy's southern region of Basilicata. She came to America as a teenager in 1906. She married, raised four children (one of whom was killed on D-Day in World War II) and modestly lived the American dream. She passed away in 1980 when I was 8-years-old but she made a lifetime impression on ...

Paolo Sorrentino at the 2005 edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, NYC Update: 12 March 2018 It's always exciting to have news about a brand new Paolo Sorrentino film. Scenes from "Loro," his latest collaboration with Toni Servillo, were released today.  The Academy Award-winning director announced the project back in 2016 at the  73rd Venice Film Festival  when he was presenting the first two episodes of his HBO series, "The Young Pope." The project had been shelved for a while and then in April of 2017,  Variety  reported that filming would start during the summer. "Loro" was loosely based on the events surrounding Italy's former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. In November of 2013, Berlusconi was expelled from parliament amid accusations of sexual relations with a minor and bribing a senator. Two years later, he was found guilty of bribing the senator and was barred from public office for five ye...