FILM
Th e lta I la n ]0 b
The fourth ITALIAN FILM
FESTIVAL serves up more tasty morsels than your
average trattoria feast. Words: Alan Morrison
When // Posti‘no picked up five Oscar nominations, many people in the Italian film industry quietly crossed their fingers and hoped this would signal a renaissance in the c0untry's cinema production. Probably these were the same people who qmetly crossed their fingers and hoped for the best when Cinema Paradiso won Best Foreign Film in 1990.
Fortunes have changed since the days of De Sica, Fellini and Rossellini, and now it's rare to see an Italian film receivmg much of a distribution in Britain. However, ever since new minister for film Walter Veltroni took office, there’s been a buzz that Italy is well on the way to regaining its position on the world cinema map. And this year's Italian Film Festival, running concurrently in Glasgow and Edinburgh, is proof that the rumours have substance.
'The Italians think the Festival does what it sets out to do, which is to give a really good panorama of what Italian cinema is about,’ says one of the
WWINNER sentiment/W
CANNES FiLM'FfigT
18 THE LIST l8Apr—l May 1997
Festival's directors, journalist Richard Mowe. ’In there you have everything from very small budget films to fairly big commercial films and, of course, a focus on Marcello Mastroianni on the year following his death.’
The MastrOianni tribute doesn't just dwell on his glory days, it comes right up to date with his last major film, Three Lives And Only One Death, in which he appeared with his daughter, Chiara. The Festival also features a four-film retrospective of Carlo Verdone, one of Italian cinema’s most approachable filmmakers, whose last film, Honeymoon Trips, overtook Mission: Impossible at the Italian box office.
’He's an Italian phenomenon who‘s very little known outside Italy,’ explains Mowe of the writer, director and actor. ’But some of his films are quite European in their outlook: in Mad About /ris B/onde, he travels to Belgium and part of Be Damned The Day / Met You is set in Wales. This is probably one of the first occasions his work has been seen in any volume anywhere else. The humour in his films is very Italian, but it’s also very human and very universal at the same tii'ne.’
Other highlights include the latest from Icicle Thief director Maurizio Nichetti, Luna Et L’A/tra, whose award- Winning star Iaia Forte is one of the Festival’s guests. Other filmmakers visiting Scotland over the next few weeks include director Antonio
Capuano, whose Pianese NLHIZIO caused a huge controversy With the
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Catholic church (Illt’ 7.") its siih;i=(t matter of a priest tr iriii‘n; fi~ Zeiiris With his against backdrop of corruption l.'l Naples
The 1997 Italian Flirts Scotland's biggest yet, .IIIII is catciiiv; up fast on the French weir! Lite" ll‘. the year The names might Hui he as starry
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as Illi'll Gilli; goiiiiterparts, but the ’tiiiiiiiix still h we : inertia in their blood.
The Italian Film Festival is at the Glasgow Film Theatre and Edinburgh Filmhouse from Fri 18-Sun 17 Apr. See Listings and Index for screening details.
MATHIEU
KASSOVITZ CRINBERG KIBERLAIN muslin
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"A DELICIOUSLY INVENTIVE COMEDY...TERRIFIC FUN ;
"A CAPT/VATING COM/C TALE”
...MARVELLOUS”
'B' 3.1. THE TIMES
"BR/LU
ANT!”
ANOUK SANDRINE
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Now Showing Filmhouse, Edinburgh