This is the kind of stuff I live for, sharing a nice movie moment and a collective smile with an audience at the Venice Film Festival. At the premiere of Roan Johnson’s fun comedy, Piuma, I got one of those really nice movie moments.

It’s the story of Cate (Blu Yoshimi) and her boyfriend Ferro (Luigi Fedele) maneuvering through nine months of teenage pregnancy. By the end of the film when the emotional stuff started to go down, I could feel us all growing closer.

As the consistently goofy Ferro and his (already at this young age) world-weary girlfriend Cate settle unrealistically into their situation, they set off an explosion that cause never-ending shock waves for Ferro’s long-suffering parents. Ferro hasn’t been the easiest child, and this is just one more thing for them to have to deal with; they don’t even seem very surprised (except when wondering how their son got a nice girl like Cate.)

Blu, a child star who played Nanni Moretti’s daughter in Caos Calmo, is just 19, setting out on a brilliant grown-up career, and I got a chance to ask her about what it was like to be young, talented, the world her oyster.

I was at the Venice Film Festival for the premiere of Piuma and I laughed throughout the whole film, and left with a big smile on my face!

First of all, what was it like to be at Venice, in the Sala Grande, with all those people laughing and cheering? Did it feel like a dream? What were you thinking when people were laughing and applauding throughout the film, and at the end, when everyone was cheering?

I love this first question! I loved the Venice Film Festival this year. I think very courageous choices were made and we, the cast and crew of “Piuma” are the proof of that. It’s unusual that a comedy like this gets accepted in competition at the festival but we were there to proof that “the heart is what counts”.  In fact, going to Venice is itself a big emotion, but going to Venice with “Piuma” has even a better feeling because personally I consider it an important achievement after hard efforts in these past years and it was a special movie for all those who worked in it… there is something magical about it! The red carpet brought me back to that magic. Walking there on the notes of Lorenzo Tomio’s (Italian composer) is one of the happiest experience I recall. A movie in the Sala Grande never looked so beautiful! I cried more than ever and at the same time I was deeply happy. It felt like everybody in that room was feeling the same things…

How did it feel to play a pregnant teenager? What do you think the movie says to teenagers about sex and responsibility?

This is one of the roles I always wanted to do. I was fond of Cate, Piuma and the story from the beginning because it reminded me a lot of my story with my mum (Magnificent Italian actress Lidia Vitale). I also was an unexpected child and with this movie I could live the same experience from the opposite point of view and appreciate even more the work my mum has done. In the end I made a lot of researches about pregnancy to make sure to bring the more truth I could. Those are things that happen and it’s a matter of respect to bring out the reality of the facts.
More than teaching about sex, I think Piuma can teach to people of all ages what it means to take  responsibility. When something unexpected occurs it brings out the worst in us and it can be an occasion to confront ourselves.

What do you want the audience to take from Piuma? Is there a message that is important to you?

What I really hope Piuma can give is an example. Not about pregnancy, but about how to face problems when they come…because they arrive and we can either fall apart or fly up as a feather so that we can see the whole view and understand that besides the obstacle we see in front of us, there is much more. That will allow us to smile and continue with another spirit.

The cast seems to be like a real family. Did it feel like that to you? What is Roan like as a director?

Family is the appropriate name for those who worked on Piuma. Starting from Luigi ( As Ferro) that besides a great collegue is now a big friend of mine, then Francesco Colella ( as Alfredo, my dad) that I deeply esteem as an artist and with all the others there was a deep harmony. Michela Cescon (Ferro’s mum) for example was for me an important female figure able to understand me without talking. This harmony was extended with all Piuma’s family. Before being actors, writers, technicians, we were all humans working hard towards something meaningful and for this I thank Roan for having being able to form such a team!

Was Caos Calmo (Quiet Chaos) your first film? How did you get started? What is it like to be a child star in Italy? It seems very difficult in the USA – is it the same in Italy?

Quiet Chaos was the first movie for the big screen. It was an amazing experience. Since I mainly grew up with my mum Lidia Vitale who is herself a great and known actress in Italy, I always wanted to be an actress. I think being an artist is alwasy very difficult, no matter where you live. Especially if you are a woman ahahah. We have some serious issues in the cultural side of our country even though things are going much better. It wasn’t and it’s not always easy to remain hooked to my dream but it’s worth it and I am never going to give up!

We’re cheering for you still, Blu!

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

Laura Morante

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

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

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

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 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

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

Alessandro Borghi, Numero 8, @AleBorghi_

Pierfrancesco Favino, Filippo Malgradi, @pfavino

Stefano Sollima, director @StefanoSollima

Carlo Bonini, writer @carlobonini

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.” 

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.

“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

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

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:

This is the kind of stuff I live for, sharing a nice movie moment and a collective smile with an audience at the Venice Film Festival. At the premiere of Roan Johnson’s fun comedy, Piuma, I got one of those really nice movie moments.

It’s the story of Cate (Blu Yoshimi) and her boyfriend Ferro (Luigi Fedele) maneuvering through nine months of teenage pregnancy. By the end of the film when the emotional stuff started to go down, I could feel us all growing closer.

As the consistently goofy Ferro and his (already at this young age) world-weary girlfriend Cate settle unrealistically into their situation, they set off an explosion that cause never-ending shock waves for Ferro’s long-suffering parents. Ferro hasn’t been the easiest child, and this is just one more thing for them to have to deal with; they don’t even seem very surprised (except when wondering how their son got a nice girl like Cate.)

Blu, a child star who played Nanni Moretti’s daughter in Caos Calmo, is just 19, setting out on a brilliant grown-up career, and I got a chance to ask her about what it was like to be young, talented, the world her oyster.

I was at the Venice Film Festival for the premiere of Piuma and I laughed throughout the whole film, and left with a big smile on my face!

First of all, what was it like to be at Venice, in the Sala Grande, with all those people laughing and cheering? Did it feel like a dream? What were you thinking when people were laughing and applauding throughout the film, and at the end, when everyone was cheering?

I love this first question! I loved the Venice Film Festival this year. I think very courageous choices were made and we, the cast and crew of “Piuma” are the proof of that. It’s unusual that a comedy like this gets accepted in competition at the festival but we were there to proof that “the heart is what counts”.  In fact, going to Venice is itself a big emotion, but going to Venice with “Piuma” has even a better feeling because personally I consider it an important achievement after hard efforts in these past years and it was a special movie for all those who worked in it… there is something magical about it! The red carpet brought me back to that magic. Walking there on the notes of Lorenzo Tomio’s (Italian composer) is one of the happiest experience I recall. A movie in the Sala Grande never looked so beautiful! I cried more than ever and at the same time I was deeply happy. It felt like everybody in that room was feeling the same things…

How did it feel to play a pregnant teenager? What do you think the movie says to teenagers about sex and responsibility?

This is one of the roles I always wanted to do. I was fond of Cate, Piuma and the story from the beginning because it reminded me a lot of my story with my mum (Magnificent Italian actress Lidia Vitale). I also was an unexpected child and with this movie I could live the same experience from the opposite point of view and appreciate even more the work my mum has done. In the end I made a lot of researches about pregnancy to make sure to bring the more truth I could. Those are things that happen and it’s a matter of respect to bring out the reality of the facts.
More than teaching about sex, I think Piuma can teach to people of all ages what it means to take  responsibility. When something unexpected occurs it brings out the worst in us and it can be an occasion to confront ourselves.

What do you want the audience to take from Piuma? Is there a message that is important to you?

What I really hope Piuma can give is an example. Not about pregnancy, but about how to face problems when they come…because they arrive and we can either fall apart or fly up as a feather so that we can see the whole view and understand that besides the obstacle we see in front of us, there is much more. That will allow us to smile and continue with another spirit.

The cast seems to be like a real family. Did it feel like that to you? What is Roan like as a director?

Family is the appropriate name for those who worked on Piuma. Starting from Luigi ( As Ferro) that besides a great collegue is now a big friend of mine, then Francesco Colella ( as Alfredo, my dad) that I deeply esteem as an artist and with all the others there was a deep harmony. Michela Cescon (Ferro’s mum) for example was for me an important female figure able to understand me without talking. This harmony was extended with all Piuma’s family. Before being actors, writers, technicians, we were all humans working hard towards something meaningful and for this I thank Roan for having being able to form such a team!

Was Caos Calmo (Quiet Chaos) your first film? How did you get started? What is it like to be a child star in Italy? It seems very difficult in the USA – is it the same in Italy?

Quiet Chaos was the first movie for the big screen. It was an amazing experience. Since I mainly grew up with my mum Lidia Vitale who is herself a great and known actress in Italy, I always wanted to be an actress. I think being an artist is alwasy very difficult, no matter where you live. Especially if you are a woman ahahah. We have some serious issues in the cultural side of our country even though things are going much better. It wasn’t and it’s not always easy to remain hooked to my dream but it’s worth it and I am never going to give up!

We’re cheering for you still, Blu!

Take a look at the “BEST OF 2017” Lists For A.O. Scott, Manohla Dargis and Stephen Holden.

Watch A Bigger Splash on Amazon, Vudu, YouTube, and iTunes.

A.O. Scott’s List:

Best Actress: Tilda Swinton

Best Adapted Screenplay: David Kajganich

Manohla Dargis’s List:

Best Actor: Ralph Fiennes

Stephen Holden’s List:

Best Picture: A Bigger Splash

Best Supporting Actor:Ralph Fiennes

Best Adapted Screenplay: David Kajganich

From Il Postino to the upcoming Mamma O Papà with Paola Cortellesi, the lovely Anna Bonaiuto has been a shining star in Italian cinema.

What is it with these older Italian actresses and their fabulous careers? Take notes, Hollywood!From Udine with Napolitano roots, Anna Bonaiuto has been knocking performances out of the park since the ’70s and is best remembered for her roles as Mrs. Giulio Andreotti in Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo and Delia in L’Amore Molesto, the movie based on a book by Elena Ferrante. She starred in Il Postino, Roberto Andò’s Viva La Libertà, and Mario Martone’s Noi Credevamo.

See for yourself:

Il Divo  

Amazon,  VUDU

Viva La Libertà   (Long Live Liberty)

 VUDU    iTunes,   YouTube   Google Play

Ivano De Matteo’s story of a woman and her son, searching for a life worth living.

Ivano De Matteo has become a sort of expert on the dynamics of families in crisis with films Gli Equilibristi (Balancing Act) with its broken family, La Bella Gente, a family with an identity crisis, and I Nostri Ragazzi (The Dinner), a family gone completely haywire. His newest film La Vita Possibile (A Possible Life) stars Margherita Buy as a mother on the run with her son, escaping a domestic violence situation in Rome.

De Matteo avoids the clichès of this sort of story, minimizing the actual violent scenes and the escape from the situation and focusing more on the aftermath as the abbreviated family unit trying to pick up the pieces. De Matteo gets really real here, and paints the portrait of what actually happens when a woman finds herself in this situation.

Anna (Margherita Buy) has no money and needs to get out of town quickly, so she looks up an old friend in Torino, Carla (Valeria Golino) and gets on the train with the clothes on their back and little else to find sanctuary in Carla’s cramped apartment. So, she’s not going to get knocked around anymore (that is, as long as her husband doesn’t find her), but the new problems that arise are endless. Her son Valerio (Andrea Pittorino) hates the idea of leaving his dad, his friends, and his bike, he hates Torino, his new school, and he even hates his mother on occasion. Ripped away from everything he knows to share a tiny bedroom with his mom at probably the worst age possible, 13, we feel for him, no doubt.

His mom is still pretty traumatized by the whole thing and isn’t helping much, and other than bringing him the  occasional sweet treat on her way home from the job she finds cleaning offices, she has little left emotionally to give at this point. He needs counseling, friends, a room of his own. He needs a dad.

Help arrives from unlikely sources; a lonely young Russian prostitute and a disgraced soccer star play important roles in helping Valerio find his bearings, and even though living with Carla is physically uncomfortable, her kindness to him is importance for his recovery.

De Matteo is a master at delicately telling us stories that we are too squeamish to tell ourselves. He makes us look at things that make us uncomfortable, but ever so gently, so that we are filled with empathy instead of criticism.

Something new, and barely legal.

Director Cristina Comencini’s comedy with an ever so slightly mid-life crisis stars  Paola Cortellesi as Lucia and Michela Ramazzotti as Maria, two BFF cougars who meet an hook up with high schooler Luca, played by Eduardo Valdarnini. Before meeting Luca, Lucia has shut herself off to the possibility of love after a big heartbreak, and Maria had been falling into bed with everybody she met ever since her messy divorce.

Could the answer to their prayers be sex with a teenage boy?

No, Qualcosa Di Nuovo is not a porno,  though the plot is a little saucier than an American version might be; Luca is still in high school, but he’s 19 and so nobody is going to jail. The whole thing is a bit convoluted but loads of fun and worth watching. Cortellesi and Ramazzotti make a great team, and do this comedy with the serious tinge realistically.

As usual, Cristina has written awesome dialogue (Qualcosa di Nuova was first a play), and though they are no longer teenagers, Paola and Micaela are still pretty hot.

Beyond the many BEST FOREIGN FILM Oscars that have come from Italy, take a look at some Italian winners in other categories.

BEST ACTOR

1998 Roberto Benigni Life Is Beautiful (La Vita È Bella)

 First Italian to win Best Actor.

BEST ACTRESS

1955 Anna Magnani The Rose Tattoo  First Italian to win for Best Actress.

1961 Sophia Loren Two Women Won (La Ciociara)
Second Italian actress to be nominated.
First Italian actress to win for Best Actress in an Italian-language film.

BEST DIRECTOR

Frank Capra (Born in Italy)

1934 It Happened One Night 
1936 Best Director Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
1938 Best Director You Can’t Take It with You

Bernardo Bertolucci

1987 The Last Emperor 

Admission is FREE! 

Check out the whole lineup: 
www.losangelesitalia.com

Here’s some highlights of the program:

Honoring Marcello Mastroianni

Celebrating Dean Martin

Oscar Nominated Fire at Sea, directed by Gianfranco Rosi

U.S. Premiere of Piuma
(Feather)
The film’s director Roan Johnson will attend the screening.

Che Vuoi Che Sia (What’s the Big Deal) 
Director Edoardo Leo will attend the screening.

Happy Birthday To One Of Our Favorite Actresses, Anna Ferruzzo!

Anna will be starring in the upcoming Taviani Brothers film, Una Questione Privata (A Private Question).
Based on the novel by Fenoglio and also starring Luca Marinelli (Non Essere Cattivo) and Lorenzo Richelmy (Marco Polo), some are saying it will premiere at Cannes.

Anna is one of those actresses that has always chosen her roles carefully and cares about picking the right scripts in quality films.

The choices made in our work are very important and I have to say I have always
been rather lucky”, Anna told me. 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.”

Watch Anime Nere: NETFLIX, Vudu, iTunes,  YouTube,  Google Play, Amazon

Anna’s filmography includes gems like Alberto Caviglia’s outrageous comedy Pecore In Erba and the Über-nominated and awarded Anime Nere from director Francesco Munzi. Anna told me, “I was sure that 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.

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.”

Born in Taranto, Puglia, she’s lived in Rome for many years with actor Massimo Wertmuller and  two mixed-breed dogs from an animal shelter in Rome, Rocco and Pupetta. She says, “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.

Tanti, tanti auguri Anna, I Love Italian Movies Loves YOU!

STRONG FIELD! 17 Nominations each for Virzì’s La Pazza Gioia and De Angelis’s Indivisibili!

For the rest of the nominations, CLICK HERE.

Best Film

Fai Bei Sogni (Sweet Dreams)
directed by Marco Bellocchio

Fiore
directed by Claudio Giovannesi

Indivisibili (Indivisible)
directed by Edoardo De Angelis

La Pazza Gioia (Like Crazy)
directed by Paolo Virzì

Veloce Come Il Vento (Italian Race)
directed by Matteo Rovere

Best Director 

Marco Bellocchio for Fai Bei Sogni

Claudio Giovannesi for Fiore

Edoardo De Angelis for Indivisibili

Paolo Virzì for La Pazza Gioia

Matteo Rovere for Veloce Come Il Vento

Best New Director

Michele Vannucci for Il Più Grande Sogno (I Was A Dreamer)

Marco Danieli for La Ragazza Del Mondo

Marco Segato for La Pelle Dell’Orso

Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro for Mine

Lorenzo Corvino for WAX: We are the X

Best Actress

Daphne Scoccia for Fiore

Angela and Marianna Fontana for Indivisibili

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi for La Pazza Gioia

Micaela Ramazzotti for La Pazza Gioia

Matilda De Angelis for Veloce Come Il Vento

Best Actor

Valerio Mastandrea for Fai Bei Sogni

Michele Riondino for La Ragazza Del Mondo

Sergio Rubini for La Stoffa Dei Sogni

Toni Servillo for Le Confessioni

Stefano Accorsi for Veloce Come Il Vento