Starring In The Latest Exciting Films

See these #VeryGoodLookingItalianStars in Suburra, Non Essere Cattivo (Italy’s submission to the Oscars), The Dinner, Gomorra The TV Series, Pecore in Erba, Short Skin, and other wonderful new films!

You know and love Micaela Ramazzotti and Monica Bellucci, but you should get to know these pretty new faces. They are on their way up.

Silvia D’Amico and Roberta Mattei

Silvia and Roberta play Viviana and Linda with amazing authenticity in the Academy Award submission Non Essere Cattivo (Don’t Be Bad). Watch for it here in the US early this year.

Sara Serraiocco

This year’s Shooting Star from Italy starred in Cloro and Salvo a really good one available to stream here in the US. 

Greta Scarano

I should be the president of this girl’s fan club; she’s amazing in the Netflix production Suburra. If you haven’t seen it yet, DO IT NOW.

Rosabell Laurenti Sellers

The star of the very cool I Nostri Ragazzi (The Dinner – Stream it now!) was also a huge hit in this past season of Game of Thrones.

And from Il Capitale Umano (Human Capital),  Matilde Gioli. Watch it now!

An actress with beauty, honesty, courage, and outrageous talent, help us wish Anna Ferruzzo a happy birthday.

Anna in Anime Nere

I Love Italian Movies: You’re the star of two of the best movies of the last two years. How do you choose your roles?  Did you know that the parts in Anime Nere and Pecore in Erba would be so important? What are you looking for when you choose a part? What is the most important? The theme? The script? The director?

Anna Ferruzzo: The choices made in our work are very important and I have to say I have always been rather lucky. In fact,there have been very few times in which they chose me for a role that I wasn’t already in love with before filming, talking with the director, or reading the script. In my overall evaluation, everything counts, empathy with the director, the script, the role, but in the end the intuition that I trust myself and I have to say that, at least until now, I have never betrayed myself. I am proud of the films that I have made, in cinema and on TV.

(STREAM ANIME NERE: Do it now if you haven’t already!)

ILIM – Pecore in Erba is really funny! How did you keep a straight face saying those lines. I can imagine that everyone was laughing  on the set.

Anna: Shooting Pecore in Erba was a really beautiful, fun experience for me. Despite being young, the director, Alberto Caviglia proved to be very talented and had really clear ideas.  The cast was mostly young people that were full of enthusiasm and full of positivity. There is no better way to make the audience laugh than to do your job with joy , and obviously that contributed to the success of the film.

None of us expected that Pecore in Erba would be selected for Venice and when we found out we were couldn’t believe it, but we were pleased. Evidently doing this wonderful work with hard work, passion and joy still pays off.

Pecore in Erba

ILIM: When did you get that Anime Nere would be such an important film? (It cleaned up at the David di Donatello Awards, outshining La Grande Bellezza and Il Capitale Umano.)

Anna: I worked with Francesco Munzi for the first time in the beautiful film ‘Saimer’ in 2004, so I had already had a chance to see the work of one of the best Italian directors in recent times. When I auditioned for Anime Nere I knew that it was an important film. I’d also read the book it was based on, written by Giacchino Criaco and its accuracy and poetry dealing with the ‘Ndrangheta had really affected me.

I was sure that Francesco Munzi would have been capable of recreating, across the images, all of the power of the story. The book differs a lot from the film but the darkness at the heart of it, that lives in the pages of the book, is the same in the film. I was aware of the fact that we were making a great film, I was proud of it and I felt that it would be appreciated and awarded.

ILIM: Francesco (Munzi, director) and Vladan (Radovic, cinematographer) told me that Africo (the location of the film in Calabria) was a little scary. Did you think so?

Anna: Calabria is a wonderful place and full of big contrasts, and as far as the landscape goes, kilometer after kilometer of beautiful coastline and a beautiful sea, inland, it’s mountainous and harsh. The locations were we were shooting were right in the backwoods of Calabria, so because of the lack of good roads, getting to the set was often complicated. At dawn the forest rangers accompanied us through the mountains in jeeps.

So we did get to know the wilder part of Calabria, the part that is less touristy and I understand that for those that weren’t born there it could seem scary. Even though I am not Calabrese, I am a women from the south and I’ve known this harshness my whole life, it’s part of my heritage. I’ve never been afraid, never.

ILIM: So where were you born?

Anna: I was born in Taranto, Puglia, but I have lived in Rome for many years.

ILIM: We Americans are very nosy about celebrities! Are you married, have a boyfriend, kids, pets…?

Anna: I live with my boyfriend Massimo, he’s an actor too. We don’t have kids but a few years ago we adopted two mixed-breed dogs from an animal shelter in Rome, Rocco and Pupetta and we adore them.

ILIM: What do you do for fun?

Anna: When I’m not working a live a very simple, and rather reserved life. It relaxes me to take care of the house myself, and I’m a kind of homebody. In my free time I love taking long walks listening to music and I don’t just enjoy making films, above all I love watching them and I go to the movies every chance I get. My passion is Italian neorealism and I love the films of Vittorio de Sica.

I really like vintage clothes and since I am a good cook (a passion that I had inherited from my mother), I have fun making the recipes my own. On my little terrace I have a tiny garden that I tend with love. Emerging my hands in the dirt magically eases all of my anxieties and seeing the first blooms of spring is a magical moment. 

Anna and Pupetta

ILIM: What can you tell me about Il Sindaco Pescatore?

Anna: Il Sindaco Pescatore is a television film inspired by the life of Angela Vassallo. Angelo was the mayor of Pollica, a small town near Cilento. An example of honest and virtuous, Angelo was killed in 2010 in an ambush by the Camorra just for opposing the spread of crime in his town. 

The film tells about his life and I play Angelina, his wife, an extraordinary woman who I had the privilege of meeting while we were making it, a human experience that was very important to me. From a professional point of view I had the chance to work with the great Sergio Castellitto and to be directed by Maurizio Zaccaro, a director that I have always admired. 

The premier was in Rome with 500 high school kids in the audience and their attention, their respect, and their participation and the tangible emotion in the theater made us realize right away that we had done a good job. 

The broadcast in Italy was a big success, with over 7 million Italians following the film and getting to know the story of this honest and courageous man, an example of good politics and civic responsibility that is rare in Italy, and thanks to TV, it was given a much broader audience. I am so proud to have participated in this film and proud to have contributed to its success.

Il Sindaco Pescatore

ILIM: So, what’s next for you?

Anna: My last film was ‘Le Ultime Cose’ (The Last Things) from young, talented director Irene Dionisio; I’m sure it will surprise you. I hope to see it in the theaters soon.

Last year the David for Best Supporting Actress went to Giulia Lazzarini.

Divorced and in a failing relationship, Margherita’s life has four burning pots and no back burner to put them aside to. The film that she’s directing is taking every amount of energy she has, mostly thanks to the manic and arrogant American star (played by John Turturro). At the same time, her mother, played by the birthday girl, Giulia Lazzarini, is in the hospital, dying from heart disease. These things along with the normal everyday life problems are pushing Margherita over the edge. As Moretti also experienced the recent loss of his own mother, the film is semi-autobiographical, making the film’s primary protagonist a woman.

Lazzarini plays a woman who is delicately slipping away and wistfully noting her decreased capacity to function as others remind Margherita and her brother, played by Moretti, that their Mamma had been a dynamic woman who changed people’s lives.

Mia Madre was scheduled to arrive in the USA April 1 at the Angelika Film Center in NYC but that has been postponed. We’ll let you know the minute we do about new dates.

Lazzarini at the Cannes Film Festival premiere of Mia Madre.

Forget about the actors for a moment; these are the top ten wildest, most charismatic, funniest, and/ or most memorable characters of the millennium.

Carlo Buccirosso, Noi e la Giulia

Vito, Noi E La Giulia

A grumpy Cammorista, Vito, (Carlo Buccirosso) expects to conduct business as usual when he shows up at the area’s new B&B, but the bumbling owners manage to thwart his extortion attempt in last year’s comedy of the year, Noi E La Giulia. (Buccirosso won the award for best supporting actor).

Catch Noi E La Giulia (The Legendary Giulia) in your city: Italian Film Festival USA.

La Grande Bellezza

Gep Gambardella, La Grande Bellezza

In La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) Gep Gambardella, (Toni Servillo) a journalist wrote an important book years ago and has spent the time since resting on the laurels. Everything in life seems like an exaggeration; a vapid, narcissistic, waste of time. In the midst of his socialite life in Rome he is surrounded by self-absorbed pseudo-intellectuals and artists that sully the name of art with meaningless nonsense, and he’s hesitant to contribute to the blah, blah blah that he feels swirling around him.

“Ci sono cose più importanti che provocare me”, Gep tells a young artist who has just run naked, smashing her head into an aqueduct as part of her performance. “There are more important things than provoking me.” He doesn’t get how shocking = brilliant and she doesn’t get why he doesn’t appreciate her brilliance.

WATCH LA GRANDE BELLEZZA

The Great Beauty (English Subtitled)

Vudu     iTunes

Hulu

Alba Rohrwacher, Hungry Hearts

Mina, Hungry Hearts

In Hungry Hearts, there were early signs of newlywed Mina’s (Alba Rohrwacher) mental unbalance; her unwillingness to eat during her pregnancy was clearly something beyond ordinary morning sickness. But starving herself is one thing; starving the baby is another. Hungry Hearts will confirm every meat eater’s suspicion that vegans are evil food haters. As Mina’s phobias and idiosyncrasies grow stronger, Jude withdraws from the world in an attempt to focus on his child and protect him; but from what? Is Mina really trying to kill her child?

Hungry Hearts

Netflix      iTunes

Non Ti Muovere

Italia, Non Ti Muovere

In Non Ti Muovere (Don’t Move) Italia (Penelope Cruz) seem so tough and yet surrender so willingly to this otherwise wimpy man ? Is she just another damaged human expecting nothing more in life or has she found the love of her life?

Licia Maglietta, Pane e Tulipani

Rosalba, Pane E Tulipani

Pane E Tulipani (Bread and Tulips) is my favorite movie, and Rosalba, my favorite character of all time. When Rosalba gets left behind at a rest stop on the Autostrada on the family vacation she makes limonata out of limoni and uses the opportunity to find what she really wants in life.

Watch Pane e Tulipani – Bread & Tulips (English Subtitled)

VUDU         Hulu        iTunes

Gianni Di Gregorio, Pranzo Di Ferragosto

Gianni, Pranzo di Ferragosto

In Pranzo di Ferragosto (Mid-August Lunch), unemployed Gianni (Gianni Di Gregorio)  lives with his aging Mamma and together they scheme to make ends meet. One Ferragosto (August vacation time), Gianni gets roped into babysitting the neighborhood old ladies so their families can go to the beach.

Pranzo Di Ferragosto – Mid August Lunch (English Subtitled)

Hulu         iTunes

Greta Scarano, Suburra

Viola, Suburra

Badass Viola (Greta Scarano) is a much bigger badass than any of the men in Netflix’s very cool crime movie, Suburra.

Suburra  NETFLIX

Fabrizio Ferracane, Anime Nere

Luciano, Anime Nere

In Anime Nere (Black Souls), Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane) is a father/family member on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And he’s getting squeezed from all sides; his Cammoristi brothers are not only making it difficult with the law and the rival families in his home town, but his son is showing more respect for his uncles than he is for him.

Anime Nere – Black Souls

NETFLIX      Vudu    iTunes

Paola Cortellesi, Tu La Conosci Claudia

Claudia (Tu La Conosci Claudia)

I absolutely a love a movie that everyone else has forgotten all about, and I love Claudia (Paola Cortellesi), the adorable protagonist in Tu La Conosci Claudia (Do You Know Claudia). Well, EVERYONE in the film loves her too, and she inspires all the men in her life to make it their mission to win her on a hilarious road trip.

Gabriella Pession, L’Uomo Perfetto

Maria, L’Uomo Perfetto

In another movie that nobody thinks about anymore, L’Uomo Perfetto, Maria (Gabriella Pession) is the best friend that you love and hate passionately. She’s great, but she’s gonna steal your boyfriend because that’s what she does.

To this day I say certain Italian words like her, “ScuuusAAAAAA!” and “”Oihlà!” She can’t help being adorable even when’s she’s deciding for everyone where they should go for dinner or proclaiming that the airport is “the only place you can get a decent cappuccino these days.”

Don’t miss a chance to see one of the best films in the last few years.

Flonja Kodheli, who plays Lila in Laura Bispuri’s ‘Sworn Virgin’ (Vergine Giurata) and actually comes from Albania, the film’s location, gave me the insider’s point of view:

“Sworn virgins were like a legend for me when I was growing up, a story our mothers told us. I didn’t know that they really existed.”

The story of the sworn virgin, a woman who, for many reasons, decides to renounce her sexuality and live as a man fascinated audiences at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Many wanted to know, “Are they cross dressers? Lesbians?” And they may be those things too, but the custom, particular to a very remote, mountainous part of Northern Albania, has its practical advantages for women who need to work (men’s jobs are forbidden to women), for families without boys, when fathers have died, or for women who are simply more comfortable in this role.

For the director, Laura Bispuri, this isn’t really the point anyway. I got the chance to sit down and talk with her, stars Alba Rohrwacher and Flonja Kodheli, and producer Marta Donzelli about their film, Sworn Virgin, one that has been garnering awards from film festivals all over the world.  What might have been a movie about women’s’ rights is more a film about human rights, Laura told me, and though the film portrays very severe life and limited opportunities for women, she tells the story entirely without adjudication.

Laura, Marta, Me Flonja, and Alba

“The beauty of the film is that it is without judgment”, said  Rohrwacher. “It’s reality with a delicate touch, and it doesn’t demonize this reality. It looks at the phenomenon in a very loving way,” and she pointed to part of the film in which the mother, played by Ilire Vinca Celaj, gently tells the girls what is expected of them in life. “It is not good to have a man’s job. It is not good to drink or smoke. It is not good to choose your own husband.”

Rohrwacher, an ethereal beauty straight out of a Botticelli painting, is one of Italy’s most sought after and dynamic actresses, and is never afraid to push herself to the limit in a film.

Alba Rohrwacher

“I’m not afraid when I have a director like Laura”, she said. “I trust her. She make things that seem harsh very easy. I took my body to a place that is so far from what my body really is, and Laura gave me the courage to go to these extremes.”

She went on, “If you have a director who doesn’t know how to contain that you risk falling and getting hurt.”

Bispuri says that her favorite part of the film is when Mark, the sworn virgin played by Rohrwacher, leaves Albania and takes one last look at her homeland.

“It was sad”, I said.

“Freedom doesn’t necessarily mean happiness”, said Flonja with bittersweet tenderness.

So who’s the actor and actress to most likely…

Actress Most Likely To Be The Pretty Girl All The Other Girls Hate

Valeria Golino

She’s older (50), and most times doesn’t look she’s brushed her hair, but she’s been dating a younger man, the uber-famous Riccardo Scamarcio, for years, and if there are rumors about cheating in that relationship, it’s usually about her cheating on him. 

She’s been making movies since the 80s and has crossed over to Hollywood movies, and now she’s writing and directing too. What’s NOT to be catty about?

SEE HERE IN HUMAN CAPITAL (Il Capitale Umano)

Actor Most Likely To Be Making Fun Of You While You Think He’s Agreeing With You

Toni Servillo

He’s laughing, but is it with you or at you? This guy with the wry smile and the amused eyes is Italy’s top actor whether you get him or not.

SEE HIM IN THE GREAT BEAUTY (La Grande Bellezza)

Actress Most Likely To Actually Be A Fairy Princess From An Imaginary Land

Alba Rohrwacher

Alba’s ethereal beauty and gentle manner makes me think she could sprout wings and fly into the clouds.

WATCH HER IN HUNGRY HEARTS AND DORMANT BEAUTY (La Bella Addormentata)

Actress Most Likely To Kick Your Ass In A Girl Fight

Micaela Ramazzotti

She’s a feisty one and I wouldn’t mess with her. She’s gorgeous, but she’s not just getting by on her looks.

Coming soon in the by Paolo Virzì that just premiered at Cannes, La Pazza Gioia.

Actor Most Likely To Have Been Prom King, Captain Of The Football Team, and President Of The Student Council

Edoardo Leo

Is it just me, or does Edoardo look like an all-American boy?  Charming, smart, talented, likeable. But not a kiss-ass. He’s been in the principal’s office a few times.

He starred in this year’s Tribeca Film Festival winner Perfetti Sconosciutti (Perfect Strangers) and you can see him in Loro Chi? (Them Who?) at this years ICFF.

Actress Most Likely To End Up At Hollywood Parties With Brad Pitt And Angelina Jolie

Greta Scarano

Greta’s going places. Soon, you’ll be seeing her in the American tabloids at Oscar parties being called Kristen Stewart’s “gal-pal”.

WATCH HER IN SUBURRA

Actress Most Likely To Put An Old Timey,  Evil-Eye, Vendetta Based Curse On You

Giovanna Mezzogiorno

She’s great, but she scares me a little. Her intensity reminds me of Anna Magnani.

WATCH HER IN THE DINNER (I NOSTRI RAGAZZI) and VINCERE.

Actress Most Likely To Have Been In Charge Of Literally Everything At School

Sara Serraiocco

I picture her starring in the school play, organizing the Varsity Club’s Habitat for Humanity project, and winning Homecoming Queen, all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA.

WATCH HER IN SALVO

Actor Most Likely To Have Had An Affair With His French Teacher

This guy is no doubt the star of teenage fantasies as well as the star of box office hits.

WATCH HIM IN LOOSE CANNONS (Mine Vaganti)

These actresses don’t know the definition of the word old.

Laura Morante

Laura Morante, almost 60!

I think I am getting a little bit of a girl crush on Laura Morante. She absolutely nailed it years ago in Nanni Moretti’s The Son’s Room (La Stanza Del Figlio), but her acting in the recent Assolo and Se Dio Vuole is better than ever.

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

I feel a little bad “outing” 51-year-old Valeria Bruni Tedeschi – she should totally lie about her age. She’s been at Cannes premiering her latest, Paolo Virzì’s La Pazza Gioia (Like Crazy), but check her out now in Virzì’s Il Capitale Umano (Human Capital).

Valeria Golino

There’s something truly wrong about how great Valeria Golino looks at 50. She’s beyond inspirational for us over 50 women; we just have to be happy for her and move on. There’s gossip about trouble in paradise for her and her 36-year-old boyfriend Riccardo Scamarcio, but dollars to donuts it’s because she’s cheating on him, and not the other way around. See her in Il Capitale Umano (Human Capital).

Sabrina Ferilli

Sabrina Ferilli

Sabrian Ferilli is a 51-year-old bombshell that starred in Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty).

Margherita Buy

Margherita Buy

Margherita Buy has won more Italian Academy Awards (Davids) than Sophia Loren and at 54 she’s still one of Italy’s most sought after actresses. See her in Viaggio Sola (A Five Star Life).

Anna Ferruzzo

Anna Ferruzzo

I was shocked when I realize that Anna Ferruzzo was 50; Anna, you start lying about your age too!  See her in one of my favorite movies of the last few years, Anime Nere (Black Souls).

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Monica Bellucci

Monica Bellucci

Monica Bellucci

The oldest Bond Girl ever will be 52 this year, and sorry, but it’s really hard not to hate her. I’m sure she’s a lovely person, but COME ON! You couldn’t TRY to be be just a little less glamorous?

Francesca Neri

Francesca Neri

Francesca Neri is 52 and still the sexy chick in Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo movies.

Isabella Ferrari

Isabella Ferrari is 52 and still willing (and able) to get naked in a movie. See it for yourself in La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty).

Nancy Brilli

Nancy Brilli

Old school funny at 52!

BONUS! Sophia Loren! No explanation necessary at 81 years old!

Don’t miss this unique opportunities to meet one of Italy’s finest actresses – Laura Morante.

Written by, directed by and starring in Assolo, Morante delivers that WOW product you aren’t expecting from a movie about a 60-year-old woman.  In it, she’s Flavia, twice divorced with two sons. In the opening scene she describes a dream she’s been having: all the men in her life are at her wake, talking about how needy, boring, and easy to move on from she’d been.

“How long could it last with Flavia?”, one husband asked the other, talking about her most recent relationship.

“Two or three months…until you realize you’re doing all the work.”

For me, Assolo isn’t even mostly about Flavia and her inability to thrive in relationships. It’s not about relationships in general, or even about women who are alone. Assolo is about what it is like to be a women, or more specifically, a woman who is not in her twenties anymore.

It’s not an issue for everyone; as a matter of fact it seemed like the other women in her world were managing  post-30 life just fine. But Assolo’s about Flavia’s perceptions, fair or not, her memories, her nightmares, and her insecurities.

Laura Morante has never been better. Always one of Italy’s top actresses, she’s moved on from the at times over-wrought over-acting of the 80s that many of her contemporaries still favor; with these recent sensitive, subtle, lovely performances, she’s a proven member of the “New Wave of Italian Cinema Club.”

You can see her, with her film tonight at The Film Society at Lincoln Center’s  Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.

Follow the stars of your favorite new movie.

Suburra has a strong presence on Twitter

READ MY REVIEW

WATCH IT ON NETFLIX

FOLLOW THE SUBURRA STARS!

Greta Scarano, Viola, @gretascarano

Greta Scarano

Alessandro Borghi, Numero 8, @AleBorghi_

Alessandro Borghi

Pierfrancesco Favino, Filippo Malgradi, @pfavino

Pierfrancesco Favino

Stefano Sollima, director @StefanoSollima

Stefano Sollima

Carlo Bonini, writer @carlobonini

Carlo Bonini

At 52, sexy Sabrina’s surprising everyone, taking bold new roles.

Sabrina Ferilli with Christian De Sica, ‘Natale a New York’

I first noticed her as the femme fatale in the cinepanettone films, the popular Italian Christmas films that seem more bedroom farce than holiday entertainment, and I think that’s how Italy identified her. Frankly, I never took her seriously, but Paolo Sorrentino did. He cast her in the Academy Award winning La Grande Bellezza, and everybody including me took notice.

With Toni Servillo in La Grande Bellezza

Then, in a career move that really shook up everyone’s perspective of her, she played a completely out of the closet lesbian in Maria Sole Tognazzi’s Io E Lei (Me, Myself and Her), one half of a couple that included Margherita Buy.

With Margherita Buy, Io e Lei

So at 50, the world found out that, hey! This girl can act! Happy birthday, Sabrina. Keep the surprises coming!

Sexy girl power over 50 – Sabrina Ferilli

1. This actor started with a career doing stunt work at Cinecittà.
2. This actor was a big TV star before appearing in movies.
3. This actor got famous on the Italian version of the tv reality show Big Brother.
4. This actor was a child star in a Nanni Moretti movie.
5. This actor has won more best acting awards than any other Italian actor.
6. This actor is in-laws with Christian De Sica.
7. This actor grew up with beekeepers.
8. This actor posed nude for Vanity Fair.
9. This actor began as a street performer.
10. This actor’s sister was the first lady of France.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ANSWERS.

The millennials are taking over and making a big impression at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Roan Johnson’s Piuma and Giuseppe Piccioni’s Questi Giorni are in competition for the Golden Lion at #Venice73.

Giuseppe Piccioni’s ‘Questi Giorni’

She’s the next big thing, and it’s her birthday!

I’ve “known” Maria Roveran, because of Facebook since I contacted her after her extraordinary performance as Luisa in Alessandro Rossetto’s Picola Patria.

Maria Roveran in Piccola Patria

In Venice starring in the Golden Lion nominated Questi Giorni with Margherita Buy, I finally got to meet her in person,  I said to her, “I told you that you were going to be a big star! Do you remember?”

She giggled modestly but happily. She’s thrilled with this opportunity, but also worried about getting this kind of role in the future. “Directors prefer actresses with a more Mediterranean look”, she told me.

“This is changing”, I reminded her. “Just look at Margherita Buy.” 

Margherita Buy and Maria Roveran

Maria says that working with seven time David di Donatello best actress award winner Margherita was like working with an icon. “She’s really a beautiful person, smart, funny, kind, and generous with other actresses.”

I reminded Maria that she’s the same kind of actress, and told her how impressed I’d been with her gentle, subtle portrayal of the young girl with cancer in Questi Giorni. Her character Liliana hadn’t told anyone, even her friends or her mother about her illness, and you could see the pain from worrying about dying and the joy of being alive in her eyes.

Questi Giorni

“Acting is about the simple things that you do”, Maria told me, “like crying. I have cancer, so now I have to cry, but Giuseppe (Piccioni, the director) said, ‘No!’ You have to suggest with your eyes a war between two feelings’. Giuseppe taught me a very big, important lesson, because as an actor you can’t take the easy way. Many times it’s the most difficult way, showing the contrast between the mind and the body.”

“I had to be very, how do you say it? Equilibrata?”

“Balanced”, someone across the room helped her out.

“I want you to do an American movie”, I told her.

“But my English…”, she fretted. (Her English is not a problem, believe me.)

“I want to do some small independent movies”, she told me. “You have to bet on the young directors and the independent films. It’s my dream.”

Maria is a singer, too, and Alessandro Rossetto had her write and perform some of the music in Piccola Patria. What does she like better, acting or singing?

“For me they are two faces of the same thing.  When I sing I can in explain personal and intimate things that sometimes I can’t explain so well.”

“Giuseppe reminded us about how we should sound, he’d say, “Please, say it more gently”, don’t be loud,  don’t use your voice like you have to claim the screen. You have to be balanced, and it’s the same for me in singing.”

I am shy with my feelings and it’s strange because I am an actress and so sometimes people think that you are not shy because you have to act – also Margherita is very shy. She’s beautiful because she tries to overcome her personal shyness. And for me, my music is like this, because I can overcome my shyness with it. Singing is a good way to research the feelings of the character – because I am Maria, but when I was Liliana, I was in a different world that I can’t explain.”

For me It was a really big responsibility to play a young girl with cancer. I did a lot of personal research – I talked with doctors and patients and I want to have empathy for the character.

“Acting is a little like playing, but it’s not a joke for me. It’s not like, “Oh now I have to cry because I have cancer”, no, no. When people ask what’s your job, it’s strange to say you’re an actress. You’re not a doctor, or whatever role you are playing, but it’s a serious kind of “playing” for me, because I want to act with the conviction of the character.”

Italy’s finest actress is over fifty and shows no sign of slowing down.

You can go see her right now, you lucky Americans, in her BEST ACTRESS winning role Mia Madre (My Mother), Nanni Moretti’s truly lovely film tribute to his own mother.

CLICK HERE FOR CITIES AND DATES

Mia Madre (My Mother)

My husband likes to complain about the roles that actresses like Meryl Streep take and I have to remind him, constantly, that women their age they are lucky to get parts at all. Fair or not fair, that’s the way it is, and so that’s what makes 7 time Best Actress winner Margherita Buy and her brilliant career so special.

Starring most recently as Adria in Giuseppe Piccioni’s Golden Lion nominated Questi Giorni (These Days), she’s the hot single mom, the one who dresses a little too young for her age but can pull if off, so why not? She’s got an apparently successful hair salon, but she’s not what you’d call good with her accounting, so her teenage daughter Liliana (Maria Roveran) steps into the mothering role from time to time, to help keep things afloat.

Though I hated to remind her of her age, I had to ask, “How are you pulling this off? How are you still getting the sexy roles?  One obvious answer; she’s still very sexy looking, but there’s more to it than that, and Margherita chalks it off to luck.

“I’m very lucky”, she told me, because throughout my career while I was growing older I have always managed to find beautiful stories and directors who gave my great roles where I’ve managed to play younger women (because she looks younger, obviously) and portraying characters at appropriate ages.”

“You don’t have to play the same role, as some actresses do”, she went on. “I’ve been able to play women who evolve and change and I was able to evolve with my characters. I’ve always felt close to the women I’ve played.”

Doing dramatic roles, in fact, “I am always too involved, sort of trapped by the characters.”

The role of Adria is definitely a dramatic one, the mother of a young daughter with cancer, but there’s a comical side to the party girl mother who won’t grow up, and I asked Margherita how she managed to play a character that was so different from herself.

“I found her amusing”, she said. “She’s a woman who I know; I’ve met many people like her in my life. She’s uneducated but she’s simple, and I understand her fragility, her insecurities, wearing clothes that are too young for her. I actually love her.”

“She had a child when she was very young and she wasn’t able to enjoy her youth, but she doesn’t want to give up being a woman”, she said. “She moved me.”

Though Margherita starred in one of my favorite comedies of all time Maledetto Il Giorno Che T’ho Incontrato (Damned The Day I Met You with Carlo Verdone), she says she doesn’t do comedies as often because they have to be well written “or otherwise it’s better not to do them”.

(Maybe Meryl Streep should take this advice.)

Whatever it is that Margherita Buy is doing to remain youthful and relevant as a woman and an actress, I don’t see any sign of that letting up.

Margherita, just so you know, luck has nothing to do with this. You really are something special.

See Margherita Buy’s movies here in the USA. Check out:

Giorni e Nuvole (Days and Clouds) 

Viaggio Sola (A Five Star Life)

Habemus Papam We Have A Pope

I’ve been asking Italian filmmakers about their favorite movies.

When I am talking to Italian directors, actors, and producers they are usually talking about the film that they are promoting, rightly so, and I decided to ask them what else they’re watching and liking these days, films made by other people.

I’m starting with one of my favorite actresses, Bianca Nappi, star of Alberto Caviglia’s ‘Pecore in Erba’ (Burning Love), Ferzan Ozpetek’s Mine Vaganti (Loose Cannons), and Duccio Chiarini’s  I Dolori del Giovane Edo (Short Skin). 

In Pecore in Erba, a film that wowed audiences at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, Nappi plays the adoring sister of a famous, young anti-semite (it’s a comedy, you heard me, it’s a hilarious lampoon of religious intolerance). She’s an absolute ironic genius, walking that fine line between zany and realistic, a classic “straight-man” in the midst of the outrageous satire.

One of Bianca’s other talents? She’ll give you your horoscope at Ladyblitz.com!

Bianca told me, “When we started shooting Pecore in Erba I was excited and very focused about my character because we all knew it would be a complex work. The whole movie is in fact based on a delicate balance between satire and reality, an interesting challenge! Honestly I knew in my heart it could become a big deal, but until it was out at the Venice Festival, you never know..”

“I think that the cinema produced by a country respects its social reality, economy and culture, and in the last five or six years there has been a rebirth in Italy, above all with directors and auteurs that are the true spirit of cinema, in my opinion,” says Nappi. “Maybe the economic crisis that Italy has gone through and is going through has served to eliminate the superfluous and made us return to our origins, that is to say making films that are more sincere and more original. We actors can’t do anything but follow this current and help the directors realize their visions.

So what film does Bianca recommend? One that I have never seen (but it’s on my list of “films to see ASAP”).

“Among modern Italian films, without a doubt one of my favorites is Matteo Garrone’s ‘L’imbalsamatore’ (The Embalmer), a powerful film noir about love and desire. If you haven’t seen it, see it!”

GET THE DVD

L’imbalsamatore

A 2002 film that the New York Times said that the “tricky comedy thriller The Embalmer subjects it to a diabolical homoerotic twist”, it stars Ernesto Mahieux, Valerio Foglia Manzillo and Elisabetta Rocchetti.

In what they call a “psychosexual power struggle”, Valerio (Valerio Foglia Manzillo) a handsome young guy begins working with Peppino (Ernesto Mahieux), a taxidermist and embalmer, a gay man pretending to be heterosexual.

A photo gallery of Paola, and a surprise for the No Perditempo Girls!

Don’t miss a chance to see one of the best films in the last few years.

Flonja Kodheli, who plays Lila in Laura Bispuri’s ‘Sworn Virgin’ (Vergine Giurata) and actually comes from Albania, the film’s location, gave me the insider’s point of view:

“Sworn virgins were like a legend for me when I was growing up, a story our mothers told us. I didn’t know that they really existed.”

The story of the sworn virgin, a woman who, for many reasons, decides to renounce her sexuality and live as a man fascinated audiences at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Many wanted to know, “Are they cross dressers? Lesbians?” And they may be those things too, but the custom, particular to a very remote, mountainous part of Northern Albania, has its practical advantages for women who need to work (men’s jobs are forbidden to women), for families without boys, when fathers have died, or for women who are simply more comfortable in this role.

For the director, Laura Bispuri, this isn’t really the point anyway. I got the chance to sit down and talk with her, stars Alba Rohrwacher and Flonja Kodheli, and producer Marta Donzelli about their film, Sworn Virgin, one that has been garnering awards from film festivals all over the world.  What might have been a movie about women’s’ rights is more a film about human rights, Laura told me, and though the film portrays very severe life and limited opportunities for women, she tells the story entirely without adjudication.

“The beauty of the film is that it is without judgment”, said  Rohrwacher. “It’s reality with a delicate touch, and it doesn’t demonize this reality. It looks at the phenomenon in a very loving way,” and she pointed to part of the film in which the mother, played by Ilire Vinca Celaj, gently tells the girls what is expected of them in life. “It is not good to have a man’s job. It is not good to drink or smoke. It is not good to choose your own husband.”

Rohrwacher, an ethereal beauty straight out of a Botticelli painting, is one of Italy’s most sought after and dynamic actresses, and is never afraid to push herself to the limit in a film.

“I’m not afraid when I have a director like Laura”, she said. “I trust her. She make things that seem harsh very easy. I took my body to a place that is so far from what my body really is, and Laura gave me the courage to go to these extremes.”

She went on, “If you have a director who doesn’t know how to contain that you risk falling and getting hurt.”

Bispuri says that her favorite part of the film is when Mark, the sworn virgin played by Rohrwacher, leaves Albania and takes one last look at her homeland.

“It was sad”, I said.

“Freedom doesn’t necessarily mean happiness”, said Flonja with bittersweet tenderness.

So who’s the actor and actress to most likely…

Actress Most Likely To Be The Pretty Girl All The Other Girls Hate

Valeria Golino

She’s older (50), and most times doesn’t look she’s brushed her hair, but she’s been dating a younger man, the uber-famous Riccardo Scamarcio, for years, and if there are rumors about cheating in that relationship, it’s usually about her cheating on him. 

She’s been making movies since the 80s and has crossed over to Hollywood movies, and now she’s writing and directing too. What’s NOT to be catty about?

SEE HERE IN HUMAN CAPITAL (Il Capitale Umano)

Actor Most Likely To Be Making Fun Of You While You Think He’s Agreeing With You

Toni Servillo

He’s laughing, but is it with you or at you? This guy with the wry smile and the amused eyes is Italy’s top actor whether you get him or not.

SEE HIM IN THE GREAT BEAUTY (La Grande Bellezza)

Actress Most Likely To Actually Be A Fairy Princess From An Imaginary Land

Alba Rohrwacher

Alba’s ethereal beauty and gentle manner makes me think she could sprout wings and fly into the clouds.

WATCH HER IN HUNGRY HEARTS AND DORMANT BEAUTY (La Bella Addormentata)

Actress Most Likely To Kick Your Ass In A Girl Fight

Micaela Ramazzotti

She’s a feisty one and I wouldn’t mess with her. She’s gorgeous, but she’s not just getting by on her looks.

Coming soon in the by Paolo Virzì that just premiered at Cannes, La Pazza Gioia.

Actor Most Likely To Have Been Prom King, Captain Of The Football Team, and President Of The Student Council

Edoardo Leo

Is it just me, or does Edoardo look like an all-American boy?  Charming, smart, talented, likeable. But not a kiss-ass. He’s been in the principal’s office a few times.

He starred in this year’s Tribeca Film Festival winner Perfetti Sconosciutti (Perfect Strangers) and you can see him in Loro Chi? (Them Who?) at this years ICFF.

Actress Most Likely To End Up At Hollywood Parties With Brad Pitt And Angelina Jolie

Greta Scarano

Greta’s going places. Soon, you’ll be seeing her in the American tabloids at Oscar parties being called Kristen Stewart’s “gal-pal”.

WATCH HER IN SUBURRA

Actress Most Likely To Put An Old Timey,  Evil-Eye, Vendetta Based Curse On You

Giovanna Mezzogiorno

She’s great, but she scares me a little. Her intensity reminds me of Anna Magnani.

WATCH HER IN THE DINNER (I NOSTRI RAGAZZI) and VINCERE.

Actress Most Likely To Have Been In Charge Of Literally Everything At School

Sara Serraiocco

I picture her starring in the school play, organizing the Varsity Club’s Habitat for Humanity project, and winning Homecoming Queen, all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA.

WATCH HER IN SALVO

Actor Most Likely To Have Had An Affair With His French Teacher

This guy is no doubt the star of teenage fantasies as well as the star of box office hits.

WATCH HIM IN LOOSE CANNONS (Mine Vaganti)

If anyone deserves to be famous, beloved, and talented, it is Paola Cortellesi.

It’s hard to imagine a more gracious, unassuming, unpretentious superstar than Italian actress Paola Cortellesi. I’d been nervous about meeting her in New York City (thanks to Italy On Screen Today) ever since I found out I’d been given the chance to do so, but I needn’t have been. She’s warm, she’s friendly, and she’s incredibly real for a woman who is number 13 on Ciak Magazine’s 2016 Power List.

I brought her a Cleveland Cavaliers T-Shirt so that she’d have something to (hopefully) remember me with, and she said, “You know I played basketball when I was young!” (I didn’t, but she is pretty tall! Usually I feel like a giant next to Italian actors and actresses, but Paola’s taller than me).

Naturally funny, I told her about how much I still love one of her earlier movies, Tu La Conosci Claudia (with Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo) and she seemed genuinely confused, probably because she wondered how I’d ever found out about a film that probably never played in an American movie theater. In it, she plays the uber-adorable Claudia, a young woman that is loved by (literally) everybody but wants to add meaning to her life. Has she always been funny? Was she a funny kid?

“At home”, she told me. “But out in the world I was very shy.”

You hear about this thing all the time, actors and singers that say they are comfortable on stage, but not one on one with people, and Paola told me that its true for her.

“I began as a singer when I was very young (age 13)”, she told me, and then went on to write and perform for a TV show, Mai Dire Gol (at age 19).”

Here’s Paola singing the theme song for Indietro tutta! 

So because I’m a woman, and not a young woman, I get curious about what it’s like for an actress in Italy that isn’t a teenager anymore. It seems ridiculously difficult for American actresses to find work as they age. Paola is only 42, hardly past her prime, but growing older hasn’t put a dent in her career by any means. She’s made 6 movies in the last 3 years, 5 extremely successful ones and 1 that is yet to be released (but it looks like a winner: Cristina Comencini’s Qualcosa di Nuovo also starring Micaela Ramazzotti).

Paola told me that it is a little easier in Italy for actresses, but not by much, and reminded me that even she had been cast, at 30, as the wife of Giovanni Storti, 18 years older, in Tu La Conosci Claudia (to be honest, I’ve spent years wondering how Claudia ever ended up with Giovanni in the first place). Evidence of her star power, her last few films have paired her with some of the most handsome, successful actors working today, Raoul Bova, Luca Argentero, and Alessandro Gassman.

Her latest film to be out in theaters, Gli Ultimi Saranno Ultimi (The Last Will Be Last) is a dark comedy that provides depressingly authentic social commentary on the economic crisis in Italy today, and Paola told me that it intends to harken back to the old neorealist films of De Sica, Comencini and Rossellini, with it’s “bitter” (amaro) overtones.

“They tell about the average man who goes to work, does his best, and is beaten down by society, and that’s what we wanted to do with this film.”

“Inspired by a bathtub”, ( in a comical side story, antennas cause the daily mass to be broadcast through the plumbing, an actual problem Nepi, for the town it is set in) Paola says that the film is based on her one woman play, Paola playing 6 characters from the story without wardrobe or makeup changes. She says that she wanted to tell this story to raise awareness for the situation in Italy, because there, according to her, so many people are “the last”, even the bosses, living with impossible situations.

READ MY REVIEW OF GLI ULTIMI SARANNO ULTIMI

One of THE MOST adorable things about Paola is her legion of fans, and it makes sense that they love her so much.

WANT TO JOIN HER FAN CLUB? CLICK HERE

I asked Paola what the nicest, cutest, or funniest thing her fans have ever done for me, and she told me a story about when she played in the movie Sotto Una Buona Stella with Carlo Verdone and her character’s name was Luisa Tombolini.

“Do you know the game Tombola?” she asked me. (I do now, but I didn’t then.) “It’s like your game “Bingo”.

Apparently some of her fans made her a gift with her name using the “tambolini” (game pieces), to commemorate her character.

I asked the girls from @PCnpf that I know if they’d been those fans, and they told me about a game that they’d made for her, an adorable Monopoly-style game. Paolopoly. Priceless!

When you are a nice person who is also gorgeous, a talented singer and an award-winning actress you are bound to have an amazing fan club!

Note to self: Start a distribution company and get her films over here to the USA. If you have a region free DVD player you’ll want to check out: