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OPEN ROADS: NEW ITALIAN CINEMA

June 1 to 10, 2004


left: The Miracle / Il miracolo

This series has been organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center together with A.I.P. Film Italia and with the help of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York. Special thanks to Alitalia for their generous support of the series. Thanks to the Italian Film Commission and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, New York University.

The series was selected by Antonio Monda and Richard Peña, with the help of Giorgio Gosetti and Griselda Guerrasio.

Over the past few years, a new generation of Italian filmmakers has begun to emerge. While defined by neither a political position nor an aesthetic approach, this generation has been unified by a new spirit of independence, of breaking away from old models and genres. Some of this "independence" has been forced on them, as the collapse of the old industrial structures has required filmmakers to really make it on their own. But this spirit is also indicative of the myriad backgrounds, experiences and influences this new generation brings to the films. One common feature of this new generation, and of many of the films in the program, is a pronounced accent on "regionalism." Several of the films - The Miracle, La Destinazione, My Brother-in-Law, Perduto amor - are set in parts of Italy infrequently seen in the cinema. There's also a pronounced return to a cinema that directly addresses social and political concerns, as evidenced by works such as Caterina in the Big City, The Place of the Soul or I Love to Work. Now in its fourth year, Open Roads can already welcome back several veterans to the program: Edoardo Winspeare, Gabriele Muccino, Alessandro Piva, Sergio Rubini and Paulo Virzi are all premiering works in the series for the second time. We're especially pleased to also welcome back Ferzan Ozpetek, whose Facing Windows - shown as this year's closing-night film for the series - will be released commercially this summer. There's a remarkable variety of styles and approaches to be seen and savored throughout the series, so join us, beginning June 1, and discover the new pleasures of an old friend - Italian cinema.

We expect many of the directors to be present for Q & A. Please visit this page again for updated information about guest appearances.

With generous support by the National Endowment for the Arts.

LA DESTINAZIONE Piero Sanna, 2003; 124m
Emilio, a young Roman studying to be a carabiniere (national civil guard) meets and befriends Costantino, a Sardinian who regales him with tales and descriptions of his homeland. As luck would have it, upon graduation Emilio gets assigned to a remote town in Sardinia, but the world he discovers turns out to be a far cry from the tranquil, hospitable island described by his friend. Centuries-old traditions of family honor and silence in the face of authority block his investigation of a murder, forcing him to question both his role as a police officer and as an outsider. Himself a former carabiniere, director Piero Sanna brings a unique insider's look into the world of law enforcement and the often complex relationships between civil authority and closed, traditional communities. A former assistant to Ermanno Olmi, Sanna makes an impressive feature film debut with LA DESTINAZIONE.
Tue June 1: 2 & 6:30; Wed June 2: 1


THE MIRACLE / IL MIRACOLO Edoardo Winspeare, 2003; 92m
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"I wanted a very realistic story, in which what seems mysterious comes about through the everyday experience of the power of love." - Edoardo Winspeare
22-year-old Tonio is the victim of a hit-and-run driver; before losing consciousness, Tonio sees before him a kind of bright light. Rushed to the hospital in a coma, he gradually recovers; one night he chances upon a patient in the midst of a fatal heart attack - yet when Tonio touches him, the patient suddenly revives. Has Tonio's near-death experience transformed him into a kind of miracle worker? Shown in competition last year in Venice, THE MIRACLE is less an exploration of faith than it is a look at the effects on people of what they deem to be miraculous. Working once again in Puglia, director Winspeare contrasts the rough-hewn, quotidian feeling of his characters and settings with the haunting sense that higher powers may be all around us.
Tue June 1: 4:30; Thurs June 3: 3; Fri June 4: 8:45

DON'T MOVE / NON TI MUOVERE
Sergio Castellitto, 2004; 125m
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Based on the bestseller by Margaret Mazzantini, winner of the Premio Strega literary award and soon to be published in the United States by Nan Talese-Doubleday, the second film directed by well-loved actor Sergio Castellitto shows an impressive growth in his filmmaking abilities, especially with regards to his direction of actors. A young girl is brought to a hospital after being struck down by a motorbike; it happens to be the same hospital where her father, Timoteo (Castellitto), is a highly-regarded surgeon. While a colleague operates on the girl, Timoteo, a generally reserved man, begins to transform. While his daughter lies in a coma, he begins to confess to her a sordid and violent love affair that took place a few years ago with a derelict young woman, Italia (Penelope Cruz). In perhaps her most complex and challenging role to date, Cruz is simply sensational. The film was one of the biggest hits in Italy last season and both Penelope Cruz and Sergio Castellitto won for Best Actor at the David di Donatello awards, Italy's equivalent to the Oscar.
At presstime we are hoping to welcome Penelope Cruz to introduce Don't Move at 9pm on Tue June 1st.
Tue June 1: 9; Sat June 5: 4

I LOVE TO WORK / MI PIACE LAVORARE
Francesca Comencini, 2004; 89m
Soon after her firm is taken over by a foreign company, Anna (Nicoletta Braschi) begins feeling a certain chill at her job. Her office mates keep their distance, and soon she's moved out of what had been her space. Transferred to another department, Anna finds herself assigned to tasks she finds increasingly demeaning or frustrating. A divorced, single mother, she barely scraped by on her old salary, but now the pressures at work begin to take their toll on what little home life she's been able to enjoy with her daughter. Few films deal seriously with work and its importance in our lives, thus it's an even greater reason to celebrate when a work as sharply observed and as powerfully rendered as I Love to Work appears. Recently awarded the Best Actress prize at the Mar del Plata Film Festival, Nicoletta Braschi has simply never been better; her Anna is never reduced to being a mere victim, but instead is played as a woman struggling to regain an equilibrium in her life even as all that she knew seems to be collapsing around her.
Wed June 2: 3:30; Sun June 6: 7:20; Mon June 7: 5:15

THE WIND IN THE EVENING / IL VENTO DI SERA
Andrea Adriatico, 2004; 92m
Paolo awaits the arrival of his longtime partner Luca, while elsewhere, elderly Marco bikes home. Suddenly, Marco is gunned down as he enters the apartment building toward which Luca is headed. Then Luca, an innocent bystander and witness, is shot in the back. Learning that Luca's been shot, his boyfriend Paolo is distraught, but arriving at the hospital he's kept from seeing him as he's not a "real" relative. Marco turns out to be a prominent politician, making his murder an assassination; police begin their investigation, pushing the shooting of Luca into the background as an unfortunate sidebar to a national event.
"A superb metaphor on the plight of gays as dramatized by the loss felt by victims of terrorism, Andrea Adriatico's The Wind, in the Evening instantly creates a gripping mood that never subsides until its beautifully meditative conclusion." - Robert Koehler, Variety
Thurs June 3: 1; Mon June 7: 9:30; Tue June 8: 3:15

MY BROTHER-IN-LAW / MIO COGNATO
Alessandro Piva, 2003; 90m
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We're pleased to welcome back to Open Roads Alessandro Piva, whose first film, La Capagira, was a great highlight of the series in 2001. Working once again in Bari, Piva has created a work that both recalls and updates the great tradition of Italian screen comedy. While gathered together for a baptism, mild-mannered Vito (Luigi Lo Cascio) realizes that his new car has been stolen. Not to worry, chides Vito's brash, somewhat sleazy brother-in-law, Toni (Sergio Rubini); they'll track down the thieves and get it back. So Vito and Toni - little more than strangers, despite their family connection - go off on a mission, during which the impressionable Vito will receive a crash course from Toni about a world he scarcely imagined existed. Lo Cascio and Rubini make a great comic duo, and Piva's screenplay (co-written with his brother Andrea and Salvatore De Mola) designs an antic mano a mano that has each one trying to figure out what's really going on in the other's head.
Thurs June 3: 5; Fri June 4: 6:30; Tue June 8: 7:15

CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY / CATERINA VA IN CITTÀ
Paolo Virzi, 2003; 90m
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Caterina (Alice Teghil) moves with her family from the small town of Montalto di Castro to Rome. The sensitive and intelligent young girl enrolls in the 8th grade in one of the most prestigious schools in the capital, where she finds her class totally divided between the snobbish radical chic, and reactionary spoiled brats. Worse, her own father (Sergio Castellitto), a frustrated professor, begins to manipulate her as he sees in the parents of her new school acquaintances the possibility for him to achieve a long-dreamed-of writing career. In the best tradition of the "Commedia all'Italiana," and without any weakness of political correctness, Paolo Virzi - whose My Name Is Tonino was a great hit in last year's Open Roads - delivers an exhilarating, though bitter, portrait of present-day Italy in which Caterina's purity seems to be the only antidote to politics, vulgarity and greed.
Thurs June 3: 7; Sat June 5: 6:45; Mon June 7: 1

REMEMBER ME, MY LOVE / RICORDATI DI ME
Gabriele Muccino, 2003; 120m
Gabriele Muccino's follow-up to the great success of L'ultimo bacio focuses on the generation of Italian forty-somethings: their dreams, hopes and disillusions. In their twenties Carlo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) wanted to become a novelist, and Giulia (Laura Morante) dreamed of becoming a great actress. Years later, they wake up and discover that reality is quite different: she's teaching high school and he's a financial broker. As for their children, they're busy pursuing their own dreams, such as their daughter Valentina, who aspires to be a velina, an Italian version of our own Vanna White. Disillusionment becomes the motor and motivation for betrayal, adventures, and what's worse, for their children's life choices. Once again, Gabriele Muccino has taken a long, hard look at contemporary Italy and come up with a portrait of his homeland that's shocking, poignant, at times funny and never less than insightful.
Thurs June 3: 9; Fri June 4: 1:30

LOVE RETURNS / L'AMORE RITORNA
Sergio Rubini, 2004; 111m
A marvelous and eclectic actor, Sergio Rubini, who can be seen this year also in MY BROTHER-IN-LAW, delivers here his most ambitious and best effort as a director to date. An actor is struck down in the prime of his career by a serious illness, inspiring him to reconsider his life and how he's been living it; for most filmmakers, this might be the start of a tragedy or melodrama, but in Rubini's hands the film plays much more like a dark comedy, thanks to the kinetic energy of his first-rate cast (Rubini, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Margherita Buy). An intelligent meditation on living, growing up and making movies, Rubini's film offers a fresh take on what hides behind each human frailty.
Fri June 4: 4; Sun June 6: 5; Tue June 8: 9:15

NOW OR NEVER / ORA O MAI PIU'
Lucio Pellegrini, 2003; 96m
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An honor student in his last year as a physics major at a top university, David has a whole career plan laid out before him, when one day he meets young woman on campus. She is Viola, and she hands him a flyer announcing a student rally against the G8 summit. Partly out of curiosity, partly hoping to see Viola again, David drifts into the rally, and eventually out of his well-measured life. Director Lucio Pellegrini offers an insightful, clear-eyed look at the world of the newest generation of student protest, gauging its new definition of political commitment while it tries to leartn from what it sees as the mistakes of the now "old" New Left. "My film is about that moment in life when every choice, big or little, can change the course of an entire existence. At 20, everything seems decisive and fundamental; each path that is taken seems to offer no way out….At that age real passions develop and often fundamental decisions take themselves." - Lucio Pellegrini
Sat June 5: 2; Mon June 7: 3:15; Thurs June 10: 3

THE SOUL'S HAVEN / IL POSTO DELL'ANIMA
Riccardo Milani, 2003; 106m
A longtime collaborator of Mario Monicelli and Nanni Moretti, Riccardo Milani continues in their tradition of exploring social and political issues in his films, often focusing on lonely, provincial idealists as his subject. The closing of the Italian branch of a U.S. tire factory in a small town of Abruzzi provokes a strong reaction from the workmen, union leaders and politicians, each with their own personal agendas. As the union bravely prepares to wage a "David and Goliath"-type fight against the powerful multinational company, the haunting sense that these men and women are facing futures without hope or real opportunities is gradually revealed. Silvio Orlando, a popular actor who's come to incarnate a kind of Italian "Everyman" in recent films, was awarded the Best Actor prize for his work in the film at the Montreal Film Festival; the excellent ensemble cast also includes Michele Placido, Paola Cortellesi and Claudio Santamaria.
Sat June 5: 9; Tue June 8: 5:10; Thurs June 10: 1

PERDUTO AMOR
Franco Battiato, 2003; 115m
The debut film of Franco Battiato, one of the most interesting and innovative Italian "cantautore" (singer-songwriter), is the coming of age story of Ettore, a young Sicilian boy, narrated from the late 50s to the Italian boom of the 60s. With a rich, luxurious look (the costumes are by Oscar winner Gabriella Pescussi, the cinematography by Marco Pontecorvo) and written with Battiato's long time collaborator, the philosopher Manlio Sgalambro, PERDUTO AMOR starts with Ettore, aged 9, being instructed by an aristocrat who lives in his small town during the the mythical 1955 San Remo Festival. The film then follows him in his twenties during the Italian boom, as he tries to match his dream of becoming a writer against the practical and shifting realities of a fast-changing Italy. Battiato melds some autobiographical notes with visionary elements to create a unique cinema style that in many ways mirrors the feel of his music.
Sun June 6: 9:30; Mon June: 7: 7:10; Tue June 8: 1

Special Screening courtesy of Sony Pictures Classic
FACING WINDOWS / LA FINESTRA DI FRONTE
Ferzan Ozpetek, 2003; 106m
"One day on the street, Giovanna and Filippo, a young married couple, come across an elderly man who has lost his memory. Already plagued by other responsibilities, Giovanna wants to move on, but the humanitarian spirit in Filippo compels him to take the man home. Giovanna may be nervous and uncomfortable with the idea of a complete stranger spending the night in their apartment, but Filippo cannot allow himself to abandon a helpless man. So begins FACING WINDOWS, a beautifully directed, unsettling film. Giovanna has an unrewarding job and a passion for baking, and dreams of opening a pastry shop. Her marriage is fine, but she is intrigued by the young man living across the way whom she watches through the window at night. While her fixation on her neighbor grows, Filippo fixes on the elderly stranger, who suffers from hallucinations and amnesia…. Combining elements of mystery, love story and historical rumination, FACING WINDOWS is about finding and fulfilling one's destiny. The narrative is complex but never opaque, as Ozpetek brings together the married woman, the man in the window and the elderly stranger to create an unlikely trio whose pasts and futures are full of surprises." - Piers Handling, 2003 Toronto International Film Festival Catalog
Wed June 9: 9

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