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Dec 18,2005 - Dec 25,2005 |
Italian films and Canadian shorts
Annual movie festival to feature new and old material emphasizing Italy's regional make-up
By Angela Baldassarre
Originally Published: 2004-06-06
The sixth annual Toronto Italian Film Festival takes place in the city June 9 to 13, and the line-up features a total of 10 features and 11 shorts.
"Emphasis this year is on the regional aspect," says Carlo Coen, director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura which is sponsoring the event. "I like to call it the regional reality."
Coen spoke at a press conference for the festival held earlier this week. The conference, presided upon by Coen, Italian Consul to Toronto Luca Brofferio, Honorary Festival Chairman Dan Iannuzzi and programmer Frank Caruso, announced a special award to Italian-Canadian filmmaker Jerry Ciccoritti for his contribution to Canadian cinema.
Opening the festival on June 9 is Mimmo Mongelli's The House of Women. The 2003 film is set in 1919 in the countryside surrounding Bari, Apulia. From a man and his three concubines a complicated family is formed, in which paternity and maternity is occasionally uncertain. Twenty years later, the eldest of the group weds and flees to Bari. The rest of the relatives move into the same building. Furthermore, the "tribe" expands with the addition of the in-laws of the first-born. Due to a combination of historical, personal and violent events, the family situation changes, endangering their entire existence. The movies stars Anna Gigante, Ivana Pantaleo, Toto Onnis, and Antonella Chilorio.
Another feature is Enzo Monteleone's 2002 movie, El Alamein. At El Alamein the Italo-German army is blocked and forced to retreat. Alongside the Germans against the English, there are also Italians, that make up a badly armed but valiant army, totally abandoned unto themselves, but proud and capable of heroic acts against a much stronger enemy and an ally that despises them. The Ariete, Trieste, Pavia and Brescia divisions, the paratroopers of Folgore, the 31st battalion of Genio carried out their duty to the full, despite enormous difficulties, with soldiers in the front lines, fighting against dysentery and thirst, in impossible conditions, in a hostile environment, where men are fighting daily for their survival. The film stars Pier Francesco Favino, Emilio Solfrizzi, Paolo Briguglia, Thomas Trabacchi and Silvio Orlando.
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