All The Shades Of Azzurri

By James Joyce - 13 October 2011

THE NEWCASTLE HERALD 

 

THINK Italy, think passion.

 

No surprise, then, that the movies showing this weekend as part of the second annual Newcastle Italian Film Festival explore affairs of the heart, as well as those other famous Italian traditions: family, politics, religion and herding goats in rustic Calabria.

 

Festival organisers Nick Moretti and Dino Cesta have broadened their cinema showcase this year to include a celebration of Italian food and culture.

 

With six films showing at Greater Union Newcastle over three days, the festival opens tomorrow with a touching tale from Tuscany, Red Like The Sky.

 

The film begins at 7pm, with wine and cheese and entertainment from 6pm.

 

On Saturday, Crown Street opposite the cinema will be closed between 1pm and 6pm for live Italian music, pizza, coffee, art and Ferrari and Vespa displays.

 

An audio-visual collage celebrating 60 years of Italians living in Newcastle, including interviews and photos, will be shown before each film.

 

Tickets costs $15 ($12 concession for students, seniors, pensioners and Newcastle Film Society members) or $63 for a festival pass ($50 concession), with proceeds from the festival going to the Heal For Life Foundation.

 

This year's films, all screening with English subtitles, are:

 

RED LIKE THE SKY (M)

Rosso Come Il Cielo (2006)

Screens: 7pm Friday

Inspired by the life of celebrated Italian film sound designer Mirco Mencacci, this film is set in a school for the blind in the 1970s where a little boy finds solace in recording sounds. Deemed hopelessly handicapped and ineligible to enrol at his local school in Tuscany, the boy is sent to an institute in Genoa where he discovers a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He splices aural tapestries and encourages fellow pupils to dream of careers beyond basket weaving.

 

THE FOUR TIMES (G)

Le Quattro Volte (2010)

11am Saturday

An elderly goat herder in a Calabrian village follows the rituals of life in this almost wordless documentary-style drama, which has been hailed as a poetic cinema experience of great beauty, wit and charm. See breakout review.

 

MANUAL OF LOVE 2 (*)

Manuale d'Amore 2 (2007)

Screens: 2pm Saturday

Writer-director Giovanni Veronesi's follow-up to his hit 2005 comedy-romance of the same name (shown at last year's festival) tells four love stories. Curvy Monica Bellucci leads the cast as a physical therapist who tends to a paralysed young man (Riccardo Scamarcio) in a spinal injuries ward. The other stories explore an infertile couple's desperation for children, a gay couple's decision to marry, and a middle-aged restaurant waiter's affair with a younger, Spanish colleague.

 

WE HAVE A POPE (M)

Habemus Papam (2011)

Screens: 7pm Saturday

This film about a panic-prone pope unwittingly thrust into the papacy who hires an atheistic psychoanalyst to help him conquer his self-doubt sparked controversy in the Catholic Church this year. Vatican traditionalists said the film, by acclaimed director Nanni Moretti, was a parody of Pope Benedict XVI and dishonoured the figure of the pontiff in general. The film, which screened in competition at Cannes, stars Michel Piccoli as the pope and Moretti as his therapist.

 

ME, THEM AND LARA (*)

Oi, Loro E Lara (2010)

Screens: 2pm Sunday

A box office hit in Italy, this comedy stars actor-director Carlo Verdone as a dedicated but homesick missionary who returns home from Africa to find that his father has married his voluptuous minder and the rest of his family are completely bonkers.

 

WHAT MORE DO I WANT? (MA)

Cosa Voglio Di Piu (2010)

Screens: 5pm Sunday

Alba Rohrwacher (who played Tilda Swinton's daughter in I Am Love) stars in this slow-burning drama of desire and discontent as a woman in a long-term relationship who falls for another man who has ties of his own. The director is Silvio Soldini (of Bread and Tulips and Agatha and the Storm acclaim) and the setting is Milan.

 

* exempt from classification