With a politically and socially active career, Federica Olivares has made an influential figure in the American and Italian cultural spheres. Olivares was most recently appointed as a cultural advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Giulio Terzi.
The Italian Academy Foundation announced that Kim Brizzolara has joined its board of directors. Ms. Brizzolara is a feature and documentary film producer and serves as an advisor to several non-profit organizations. She is executive vice chair of the Hamptons International Film Festival, serves on the Board of the We are Family Foundation, and Creative Visions, and is a member of the Women’s Leadership Board at the School of Government at Harvard.
by William HOPE
Italian cinema experienced several golden eras during the course of the 20th century, periods during which the artistic vision and expertise of Italian film-makers and technicians were unparalleled. The opulent mise-en-scène of early works such as Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914), the stark stylistic originality of the neorealist era from the mid-1940s onwards, and the lavish cinematography of Oscar-winning works such as Giuseppe Tornatore’s Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1989) and Gabriele Salvatores’s Mediterraneo (1991) – these latter films revisiting, sometimes nostalgically, the community life and interpersonal solidarity of former generations –consolidated Italy’s position as an epicentre of cinematic innovation.
by Laura GIACALONE
Established auteurs and emerging filmmakers alike offer their own perspectives on contemporary Italy at “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema”, the leading North American showcase for contemporary Italian cinema, organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center together with Istituto Luce-Cinecittà and Filmitalia. This year’s edition (June 8-14, 2012) brought together directors (1) from different backgrounds and ages, who embody different ideas of cinema and contribute to piecing together a multi-faceted, complex picture of today’s Italy.
by Laura GIACALONE
Located 10 miles from the center of Rome in a parkland estate extending over 99 acres, Cinecittà is the hub of Italian Cinema as well as the largest filmmaking facility in Europe. Since its foundation in 1937, it has hosted more than 3,000 films, which have made the history of cinema – from classics like Quo Vadis? (1951), Ben Hur (1959), Cleopatra (1863) and La dolce vita (1960) to more recent productions, such as The Name of the Rose (1986), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), The Godfather Part III (1990), The English Patient (1996), Gangs of New York (2002), Ocean’s Twelve (2004), The Passion of the Christ (2004) and the BBC/HBO series Rome (2004-2007).
by Laura GIACALONE
The Berlinale’s Golden Bear to Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, two masters of Italian cinema (respectively 80 and 82), for Caesar Must Die, sheds a new light on the contemporary Italian film scene, and perhaps on Italy as a whole. In a moment when Italy seems to struggle to live up to its glorious past, this prestigious international recognition is felt not only as a well-deserved appreciation of the Taviani brothers’ outstanding work, but as a sign of encouragement to a whole country. “Many people, after the award ceremony, thanked us on behalf of Italy, as if this prize were a prize to Italy” – says Paolo Taviani. “One even called us on the phone and said: ‘Thanks! I’ve hung the Italian flag out of my window!’ This is a tricky moment for our country. People believe it’s time for a change, they hope for a turning point. So this film, which is quite anomalous, somehow complies with these wishes.”
by Francesco DEL GROSSO
Italy boasts an extremely rich film tradition, which over the years has also become a burden difficult to bear and almost impossible to get rid of. In the last few decades, Italian filmmakers have made every effort to prove that Italian cinema has moved beyond the glories of the past, beyond the “Peplum” epics that dominated the Italian film industry from the first decade of the 20th century to the 1960s, beyond Neorealism and the Italian-style Comedy, beyond the Spaghetti Western and the Dolce Vita. Although the most recent productions “made in Italy” have not been able to live up to this glorious past, there is a variegated number of authors from different backgrounds, styles and ages whose work is particularly noteworthy: they are actually “mavericks” moving within an absent film industry that is neither financially sound nor effective in terms of regulations able to support technical and creative professionals.
by Pierpaolo FESTA
Woody Allen calls it “an osmosis,” something that is not done on purpose. Something that little by little penetrates the subconscious. It can be about art or history. Of course, it is also about landscape – just like walking among the stones of Via Appia, sipping Chianti while enjoying the Tuscany countryside or swimming in the magnificent blue sea of Sicily. This dive into the Italian culture is like an epiphany, a big emotion that nowadays American cinema wants to find more and more.
by Roberto SILVESTRI
The state of Italian film making comprises not only stalwarts like Nanni Moretti, Matteo Garrone, Francesco Rosi, Sabina Guzzanti, Paolo Sorrentino, Marco Tullio Giordana, but also names like Michelangelo Frammartino, Pietro Marcello, Alba Rohrwacher, Pippo Del Bono, Daniele Ciprì, Roberta Torre, Franco Maresco, and Stefano Savona; making the industry multi-faceted. The neo-realism of 1945-1948 saw a resurgence of a country in ruins and split by the European Recovery Program, which preferred American corporations taking advantage of low wages in a country beholden to the Western superpower. Today, that same country is still in ruin, spiritually and morally.
by Enrico AZZANO
There is an old saying which says that we must look to the past to reconstruct the future. The golden years of cinema seem so far away: the years of neorealism, peplum (sword-and-sandals), spaghetti-westerns, thriller and horror, comedies, melodramas, politics; and of the Oscar winners, Cannes Film Festival winners, Cinecittà stars, and the many other internationally known and recognized awards.
