Celebrate the International Day of Italian Cinema with us!

Fellini's "Amarcord"

Today is the International Day of Italian Cinema and I’m sharing it via Zoom with three Americans of Italian origin who have been influenced by the culture and cinema of Italy. Each of us has gone to Italy to explore our origins and those trips have inspired our work.

Everyone is New York City-based, except for me. I am in western New York closer to Toronto than New York City. My guests are:

Taylor Taglianetti, the founder of The National Organization of Italian Americans in Film & Television (NOIAFT)

Giò Crisafulli, a filmmaker and Chief Entertainment Critic for the NOIAFT

Lucia Grillo, an actress and filmmaker

Our common ground is that we’ve spent extended periods of time in Italy exploring the land of our origins and really taking in and learning about the good and the bad of our culture.. the bad being the difficult past that our ancestors faced, not just in the South but in all of Italy from the pandemics in the North during the middle ages to the battles in the South that created the poverty our ancestors eventually were forced to flee.

I began the conversation talking about Pier Paolo Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" and Francesco Rosi’s adaptation of Carlo Levi’s “Christ Stopped at Eboli,” which have both been decades-long learning tools about the land of my family's Italian origins in Basilicata.

I shared a bit about my experience growing up with the classic cinema of the '50s and '60s, and when I was in my 20’s, I wanted to discover the new cinema upon returning from a 6-month stay in Rome. The first movie I remember seeing was Lina Wertmuller’s “Ciao Professore” starring Paolo Villaggio and I think that’s what started my affection for the South.

We also talked about the cinema of Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica among others. Watch our conversation and feel free to share your favorite films with us on our social media platforms..

Stream these films that we discussed... Click here to watch a fascinating collection of interviews with Fellini on the Criterion Channel.

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