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Sept 7 - Sept 14,2003 |
Italians make waves in Toronto
Muccino, Moretti, Bellocchio, Avati, Tullio Giordana, Ozpetek and Salvatores at Festival
By Angela Baldassarre
Originally Published: 2003-08-31
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The best of youth
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Exactly a decade has passed since the Toronto International Film Festival held its Italian Renaissance programme in the National Spotlight section, which spotlighted some of the best and most interesting cinema produced in Italy at the time. Since then, the presence of Italo cinema at the festival has been sporadic and, often, lost amidst the hundreds of movies circulating during the event.
This year, the Italian invasion is back, and though the festival isn't featuring these movies in any specific programme, they're all screening in the fest's most prestigious sections.
Marco Bellocchio's Buongiorno, Notte (Good Morning, Night) is a Gala, and stars Sergio Lo Cascio and Maya Sansa in a story about terrorists attempting to find meaning in a "normal" life. A master of Italian cinema, Bellocchio has directed I pugni in tasca (1965), La Cina č vicina (1967), Nel nome del padre (1971), and more recently L'ora di religione which screened at the festival last year.
Marco Tullio Giordana's La Meglio Della Gioventú, (The Best of Youth) screens in the Special Presentations programme, and tells the story of an Italian family from the late 60s to the present day, focusing on two brothers, Nicola and Matteo. They share the same hopes, the same dreams, the same books and the same friends - until an encounter with a disturbed young woman, Giorgia, decides the fate of both of them. The film, winner of Un Certain Regard in Cannes, covers 40 years in six hours and is both the longest and shortest film of 2003.
One of the most popular films in Italy this year, Ferzan Ozpetek's La Finestra di Fronte (Facing Window) makes its North American premiere in the Contemporary World Cinema programme. Ozpetek, probably Italy's most exotic exponent of the new generation of filmmakers - not surprisingly, he was born in Turkey - explores the painful memories of one of the 20th century's most shameful events. The film, which won Italy's David of Donatello award, centres on a Roman woman (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) who discovers that an elderly man hides a terrible secret dating back to 1943. Ozpetek presented his Le fate ignoranti in Toronto in 2001.
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