PRESENTED BY THE ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE MELBOURNE
I am happy to help bring a selection of films from the New Neapolitan Cinema movement to the attention of the local public. With this expression we usually mean the rich Neapolitan film heritage of the last 30 years, cinema that has won acclaim from the public and critics.
A recent example is the victory of nine David Donatello awards and 38 nominations for Neapolitan cinema and filmmakers. This growing movement has transformed into a school and artistic reference and what has emerged is a city which, together with Campania region, is experiencing a real boom in the audio-visual industry. The result is a new image of Naples, which, although told in its contemporaneity, never loses its identity: however, the gaze is new and shuns both the tradition of stereotypes and that of folklore. The selection will fascinate for the heterogeneity of topics and stories as well as for the diversity of styles.
Our support for this Italian Film Festival is part of the BeIT strategy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation: promoting cinema means expressing and promoting culture and values.
Angelo Gioè
Director
Italian Cultural Institute – Melbourne
In this film-within-a-film starring Toni Servillo, a film director and the Venetian libertine both have trouble facing the fact that they are over 60.
A screen adaptation of best-selling writer Maurizio De Giovanni's stage play, this Naples-set story from Alessandro Gassmann follows a once well-off family that is selling their house and must face up to their own secrets and silence.
Winner of Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor at the 2022 David di Donatello Awards, this suspenseful drama about a group of prisoners and their guards in a remote prison stars Toni Servillo and Silvio Orlando.
Winner of Best Director and Best Screenplay at the 2022 Nastri d’Argento Awards, Toni Servillo stars in this dazzling biography of Neapolitan comic theatre legend Eduardo Scarpetta.
Suspense and a pinch of romance are the ingredients of The Perfect Dinner, a delicious comedy about a Neapolitan mafioso who is sent to Rome to launder money through a restaurant, crossing paths with a chef who dreams of winning a Michelin star.
An Oscar-winning trilogy of romantic comedies set in different parts of Italy, with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni starring in each story, from acclaimed director Vittorio De Sica.