Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from April, 2018

Lucia Grillo Talks with Filmmaker and Artistic Director Irene Dionisio about the Lovers Film Festival – Torino LGBTQI Visions

Irene Dionisio is the artistic director of the  Lovers Film Festival – Torino LGBTQI Visions, the   oldest themed film festival in Europe. She is also a filmmaker in her own right. Her first narrative feature,  Le ultime cose , made its North American premiere last year at Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, an annual showcase of contemporary Italian Cinema hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. That’s where we caught up with Dionisio and asked her about the film festival and why the timing is so important. Our contributor Lucia Grillo was guest reporting for us during the series and conducted the interview. You just became the Artistic Director of an LGBTQ film festival. Tell us what inspires you and how it’s going so far. This is sort of a revolution because it is the oldest film festival in Italy. They asked me to be the artistic director of the festival. So, it’s a great change and for me, it’s very important because this is  a female artistic director. It’s importa

The Evolution of #Womeninfilm in Contemporary Italian Cinema

Before #womeninfilm was a hashtag, I was talking with Italian actresses and women directors about their plight in the male dominated film industry. With all this week's news about Italian filmmakers like Asia Argento speaking at the Women in the World Summit in New York and the films of Valeria Gollino and Alice Rohrwacher making the official program of the Cannes Film Festival, I'd like to revisit a few of my past conversations with women filmmakers to look at how the conditions and opportunities have improved and what still needs to be done for women in Italy's film industry. T here's no better way than hearing directly from the women in the trenches, so  I've extracted these quotes from my interviews. Notice how grave the outlook was in 2005 and how it improved through the years with 2017 being the most positive. Actress Valentina Cervi New York City, 2005 Open Roads: New Italian Cinema “I think that cinema in general is going through a hard time b

Italian Films at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival

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