“Italy’s cinema is again flying high,” the veteran critic Paolo Mereghetti declared at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival after the country nabbed the hotly contested Grand Prix (Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah) and Jury Prize (Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo). These triumphs have lent the country’s industry some much-needed resuscitation, even if it still has a long way to go before reclaiming the glory days of neo-realism and the great works of Fellini, Antonioni and Visconti.
While Gomorrah and Il Divo have had successful releases in Britain and Ireland, most of the titles in this festival of recent Italian cinema may not be seen here again. With new works by some of Italy’s most famous directors (Ermanno Olmi, Pupi Avati, Francesca Archibugi) and exciting new discoveries (Gianni Di Gregorio, Andrea Molaioli), the selection is set to maintain the cinematic high after the international success of the Cannes winners.
This event is organised in collaboration with the UK and Irish Italian Film Festival, which in turn is supported by the Italian Cultural Institutes in Scotland, London and Dublin.
