Italian Cinema Today

Marco Leonardi in a scene from "Ustica" On June 15, Director Renzo Martinelli will present the film "Ustica" in Toronto at the Italian Contemporary Film Festival. Based on a true story, Martinelli explores the unsolved mystery of a downed passenger plane in the Tyrrhenian sea between the islands of Ponza and Ustica, located in the stretch of sea between Rome and  Palermo. On June 27, 1980 at 8.59 pm, a DC9 belonging to the private Italian airline ITAVIA disappeared from radar without launching any emergency signal. The airplane was flying at cruise speed at an altitude of 7,600 meters, along the airway “AMBRA 13” when it suddenly crashed around the “CONDOR” point between the islands of Ponza and Ustica, sinking in the  “Tyrrhenian trench”, which is 3,500 meters deep. All 81 people onboard died, including 14 children. The wreckage and bodies that were recovered indicate something happened to the aircraft while in ...

  With Gabriele Mainetti at Lincoln Center in NYC Even if Gabriele Mainetti is young and hip, there is a certain elegance about him. He stands tall and carries himself with confidence. When he opens his mouth to speak, this beautiful English with a slight southern accent comes out. When we sat down to talk, I commented on his accent right away and he told me that he studied filmmaking at the Tisch School of the Arts and that his sister lives in New York and his grandmother was raised in New Jersey. I kept this in the back of my mind. When I began to look into his background for this article, I researched his sister in New York and what a fascinating world I found.   Gabriele Mainetti's action-packed thriller "Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot" (They call me Jeeg Robot) premiered at the Festa del Cinema in Rome last October. After a wildly successful run in Italian theaters earlier this year, it won an Italian Golden Globe for Best Film and al...

Photo by Jeremy Saffer ( http://store.jeremysaffer.com/collections/tenthirtyoneinc ) Lacuna Coil is a heavy metal band whose unique sound and creative music videos have catapulted them to international stardom. The band consists of Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro on vocals, Marco Coti Zelati on bass, Cristiano Migliore and Marco 'Maus' Biazzi on guitars and Cristiano 'CriZ' Mozzati on drums.      All members hail from Milan and bring to the table their own signature talent. A few years ago, the internet buzz about Lacuna Coil's music videos prompted me to check them out on YouTube. I've been hooked ever since. Their videos are creative vignettes shot all over the world, directed by cutting edge filmmakers in Europe and the United States.   Although Lacuna coil is considered a heavy metal band, the unique melodies in their songs are rarely found in traditional heavy metal.   The range of the band is also something you rarely see in this genre of mus...

In March, Italian documentary filmmaker Roberto Minervini received a special mention Nastro d'Argento (Il Nastro Speciale) for his film, The Other Side . It's recently been shown at the Palm Springs FilmFestival and Lincoln Center . On June 10, it will return to Toronto where it originally premiered last year at the Toronto Film Festival . The title most likely references  “the tracks,” offering a portrait of America’s poor, surviving on a diet of beer, tobacco, heroin and crack in trailer homes in Louisiana and Texas.   Minervini is becoming known for his hybrid form of filmmaking, which shows people essentially play themselves, creating the look and feel of a documentary, while the director clearly intervenes to create situations rather than observe them. His work is among the most interesting to emerge from the US in recent years, which may be surprising considering he is an Italian who has decided to poke his camera into the margins of American society. On ...

Born in the historic seaside city of Crotone, Calabria, actor Stefano Grillo  is about to reach North American shores. "Quo Vado?" is Checco Zalone's box office record-breaking film and it's in the lineup of this year's edition of the Italian Contemporary Film Festival  in Canada. Grillo plays the part of Don Michele Vannucci, the pastor in a fictitious village in Calabria, called Castrovizzo. Don Michele Vannucci is a priest who fights against organized crime and because of this, ends up being transferred elsewhere. The focus of "Quo vado?" is on Checco Zalone ( Luca Medici aka Checco Zalone ). Born into a life of relative comfort and privilege among his peers in his small town in southern Italy, he is one of the lucky few to have a posto fisso, or guaranteed job as a public servant. When a new reformist government vows to cut down on bureaucracy, Checco is forced to accept ever-worsening public-sector postings in order to maintain his guarante...

With Alberto Diamante in Toronto, Canada By teaching a teenage boy how to win over a girl, a crusty bookstore owner learns to resolve his own romantic troubles. This is the story of The Bookstore , the charming, thought-provoking comedy by Alberto Diamante, which is in the lineup of Canada's Italian Contemporary Film Festival. Alberto Diamante is a jack-of-all-trades. He wrote the screenplay, directed the film and participated as a lead actor. We met last year in Toronto at the Italian Contemporary Film Festival. He photographed my interview with Edoardo Leo, and we had a very nice conversation while waiting for Leo to arrive for the interview. However, I had no idea the range of his talent. Now living in Toronto, Diamante is originally from Italy. He called on his Italian culture when writing the screenplay for The Bookstore . I spoke with Diamante about those roots, his many talents and the idea for this film. So where did this idea come...

Enrico Medioli and Rocco Talucci What do you get when you round up a bunch of Golden Age cinema legends to talk about one of their peers? An engaging documentary called, "Ritratto di sceneggiatore in un interno" (Portrait of a Writer). It is a beautiful film filled with nostalgia, wit and recollections of an era gone by. Filmmaker Rocco Talucci explores the career of renowned writer Enrico Medioli who worked with the likes of Luchino Visconti, Valerio Zurlini and Sergio Leone, and is credited for writing their masterpieces: "Il Gattopardo," "Once Upon a Time in America" and "Ludwig". He also worked extensively in television, creating recent hits like the acclaimed 2007 "War and Peace" and the 2008 miniseries "Coco Chanel." With "Ritratto di sceneggiatore in un interno", Talucci analyzes the work of Medioli through his unpublished testimonies and those of the people who have worked with him throughout his dis...