Twenty-two years ago, Antonio Zeccola realised that Australia had other film festivals, but nothing dedicated to Italian cinema, and an idea was born. In November 2000 in Sydney and Melbourne, the first edition presented 11 features, five retrospective titles and five shorts, including Opening Night selection Bread and Tulips (Pane e tulipani) by Silvio Soldini and One Hundred Steps (I cento passi) directed by Marco Tullio Giordana. The event was a resounding success.
Spurred by audience demand, the second Italian Film Festival expanded nationally in 2001 to Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane, with the Opening Night selection Malena starring Monica Bellucci, the Centrepiece The Son’s Room (La stanza del figlio) directed by Nanni Moretti and Closing Night Selection The Last Kiss (L’ultimo bacio) directed by Gabriele Muccino. Since then, the festival has grown in popularity to the point where it is now the biggest public celebration of Italian cinema outside Italy.
Organised entirely by Palace, a 100% Australian-owned independent family business, the festival continues to present the best new contemporary Italian cinema and most cherished classics on the big screen. For more than two decades the Festival has celebrated Italian language, culture and la dolce vita with an ever-growing audience. Viva il cinema!
Each year the Italian Film Festival offers a wide range of Italian films, new and forthcoming releases, and a retrospect.
This year the retrospect is significant, focusing on the films of Roberto Rossellini, a pioneer, especially in the 1940s, with social realism, films about the war and post-war experience. The retrospect also includes films with his wife of the time, Ingrid Bergman.
2020 was the centenary of the birth of Federico Fellini. This festival includes Fellini Forward, an experimental film where filmmakers, experts, IT technicians, try to find algorithms with data from Fellini films to create an ‘original’ Fellini film. Interesting to see the process, but a reminder that any work of art, despite the contributions of AI, needs the personal inspiration.
And, speaking of art and artists, there is a portrait of the reclusive, mentally disturbed, Italian artist, Tony Ligabue, in Hidden Away. Padrenostro goes back to the 1970s, the period of social upheaval, local terrorist groups, including the Red Brigade in Italy. The director of this film is remembering his father, a policeman of the period, target of these groups. While the drama is strong, the perspective of the film is always from the point of view of the 10-year-old boy, observing, not comprehending, finding a friend and confiding in him.
By contrast, there is a more contemporary story, set in Venice (with continual wonderful shots of the city and the canals), the story of a couple whose son dies mysteriously. Years later, a businesswoman approaches them with a story that their dead son communicates with hers. Is this authentic? Is she a fraud? The English title sounds rather the opposite of the Italian title, You Came Back (pictured) versus Lasciami Andare (let me go).
There is also a film for children and parents, Glass Boy, again the perspective of a 10-year-old who is suffering from haemophilia in a coastal city near the Austrian border, his family trying to preserve his health by cutting him off, but he is eager to be with the children of his own age that he observes from his window. He does get to meet them – with some surprising consequences.
As always, the festival offers a window on Italy both past and present.
Dates – Australia wide
PERTH: 20 Oct - 14 Nov
Showing at Palace Raine Square • Luna Leederville • Luna SX • Windsor Cinema
BRISBANE: 20 Oct - 14 Nov
Showing at Palace Barracks • Palace James St
ADELAIDE: 20 Oct - 14 Nov
Showing at Palace Nova Eastend Cinema • Palace Nova Prospect Cinema
BYRON BAY: 22 Oct - 7 Nov
Showing at Palace Byron Bay
SYDNEY: 27 Oct - 21 Nov
Showing at Palace Norton St • Palace Verona • Palace Central • Chauvel Cinema
CANBERRA: 17 Nov - 12 Dec
Showing at Palace Electric Cinema
MELBOURNE: 19 Nov - 12 Dec
Showing at Astor Theatre • Palace Balwyn • Palace Brighton Bay • Cinema Como • Palace Westgarth • Kino Cinema • Pentridge Cinema • Cinema Nova