This Week >> 8/07/2008
Vita è bella, La (Life is Beautiful), 1997
This Week Let's Travel! takes listeners to Italy as reflected through the eyes of its filmmakers. At the Open Roads Festival in New York City, we hear about the grand tradition of Italian cinema, as well as a look into the future of Italian film-making, from Richard Pena, program director, Lincoln Center Film Society and Irene Bignardi, president, Filmitalia. And two Italian directors, Davide Marengo and Andrea Molaioli discuss the films they presented this year. Plus we get tips on "hidden gems" in Rome from Ms. Bignardi.
What we'll be exploring
Legendary Italian Filmmaker, Roberto Rossellini
The Italian film industry took shape between 1903 and 1908, led by three major organizations - the Roman Cines, the Ambrosio of Turin and Itala Film. Other companies were soon to follow in Milan and Naples. In a short period of time, these early companies attained a respectable production quality and soon were selling films abroad as well as inside Italy.
One of the first Italian filoni (sub-genres) was the historical film: the first work in the genre was Filoteo Alberini's La presa di Roma, 20 settembre 1870 ("The Capture of Rome, September 20, 1870"), filmed in 1905. Other films portrayed famous historical figures such as Nero, Messalina, Spartacus, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. Arturo Ambrosio's Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (1908, "The Last Days of Pompeii") quickly became famous, so famous that it was remade by Mario Caserini in 1913. In the same year Enrico Guazzoni directed the widely appreciated Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
Actresses Lyda Borelli, Francesca Bertini and Pina Menichelli were the first "divas" (stars), specialising in passionate tragedies. Francesca Bertini became the first "star" of cinema, as well as the first actress to appear on film partly naked. Other filoni featured social themes, often based on published literature. In 1916 the film Cenere (Ash) was based on Grazia Deledda's book, and interpreted by the theatre actress Eleonora Duse (also famous as Gabriele D'Annunzio's lover).
Cinecitta Studios - Rome, Italy
Today, a new generation of directors has helped return Italian cinema to a healthy level since the end of the 1980s. The sign-bearer for this renaissance is Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, for which Giuseppe Tornatore won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1990. This victory was followed two years later by another, when Gabriele Salvatores's Mediterraneo won the same prize. Another exploit was in 1998 when Roberto Benigni won three oscars for his movie Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella) (Best Actor, Best Foreign Film, Best Music). In 2001 Nanni Moretti's film La stanza del figlio (The Son's Room) received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Other recent films of note include: Jona che visse nella balena directed by Roberto Faenza, Il grande cocomero by Francesca Archibugi, Il mestiere delle armi by Olmi, L'ora di religione by Marco Bellocchio, Il ladro di bambini, Lamerica, Le chiavi di casa by Gianni Amelio, Io non ho paura by Gabriele Salvatores, Le fate ignoranti, La finestra di fronte by Ferzan Özpetek, La bestia nel cuore by Cristina Comencini.
To read more about the history of Italian cinema, click here
Guests
Lincoln Center Film Society
Richard Peña is an American film program director noted for his organization of the New York Film Festival. Interested in film at a very young age, when Richard was just 12 years old, he was already attending the New York Film Festival, to view a rarely shown Erich von Stroheim movie. Even as a boy, he has admitted that he was a passionate film buff, and this passion was sparked when he began attending Spanish language films with his grandparents at the Elgin Theater in Chelsea. Two decades later, Peña helps choose the films that are featured at that prestigious festival. That's part of his role at the Lincoln Center Film Society.
Richard attended Harvard University, where he combined his love of film with his interest in Latin American culture. A son of Spanish and Puerto Rican parents, he spent a year in Rio de Janeiro for his senior thesis on Brazilian cinema and Argentine cinema.
After earning a master's degree in film at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Peña taught film at several colleges before joining the Film Center at the Art Institute of Chicago, eventually being named its director. He came to the Lincoln Center in 1988 where he has been working ever since.
Since then he has been also been film program director for the New York Film Festival. He has the power to overlook which films are shown at the festival on an annual basis, welcoming in world films and foreign language films which often wouldn't be allowed to appear in many other mainstream festivals.
Richard is also an Associate Professor of Film at Columbia University, where he specializes in film theory and international cinema.
46th New York Film Festival
September 26 - October 12, 2008
Premiering the best in cinema from around the world.
Read more about it here
To read a brochure from a previous Italian film festival at the Lincoln Center Film Society, click here
Filmitalia
Irene Bignardi was born and educated in Milan, where she graduated in modern literature, and studied Communications at Stanford University with a Fulbright Fellowship. She has worked as a cultural journalist for La Repubblica, since the inception of the daily newspaper in 1976, and from 1989-2000 she was head of its film critics' team. Prior to that from 1979-89, she wrote a column of film criticism for the weekly l'Espresso. From 1986-89, she was the director of MystFest, the International Film Festival of Film Noir in Cattolica, Italy and from 1992-94 she worked in the Venice Film Festival with Gillo Pontecorvo as head of the Venetian Nights with Giorgio Gosetti. From 2001-05, she helmed the Locarno International Film Festival.
For many years Ms. Bignardi has contributed on cultural programs and documentaries for the Italian Public Television, Rai. She is the author of two documentaries written for Gianfranco Mingozzi, with Francesca Bertini, L'Ultima diva and Bellissimo (on Italian cinema) and several essays, some of which are included in the books Il declino dell'Impero Americano, 50 registi e 101 film (Feltrinelli, 1996); Memorie estorte ad uno smemorato, vita di Gillo Pontecorvo (Feltrinelli, 1999); Le piccole utopie (Feltrinelli, 2003); and Americani (Marsilio, 2005). Ms. Bignardi has served on many international cinema juries including San Sebastian, Un certain Régard in Cannes, Chicago and Sundance. She reads History of Cinema at the Master program of Clast, in Venice IUAV (School of Architecture), and has been honoured as Commendatore della Repubblica Italiana, Italy's highest civilian honor by decree of the President.
Today she is the President of FilmItalia, a group created to promote Italian cinema abroad, and increase the distribution of Italian films on the International market.
Davide Marengo and Andrea Molaioli
Film Directors
Below are two reviews for upcoming movies that were directed by our guests. "Nottuno Bus" is directed by Davide Marengo, and "La Ragazza del Lago" is directed by Andrea Molaioli:
