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From Venice to Moscow
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March 03-07
Illuzion 
On March 3rd, the 6th Italian film festival "From Venice to Moscow" kicked off at "Illusion". Over the course of five days it will present a selection of contemporary Italian films picked from the official program of the 71st Venice film festival, "Horizons" sections and out-of-competition showing which took place in Venice between 27 August to 6 September 2014. Moscow viewers will see seven best feature films and documentaries: a documentary portrait Donne nel Mito: Sophia Racconta la Loren telling by Sophia Loren herself; an industrial symphony La Zuppa del Demonio personally brought to Moscow by director Davide Ferrario; drama Anime Nere by Francesco Munzi; a ballade Senza Nessuna Pietà by Michele Alhaique.
The event is organized by the 71 Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica, Italian Cultural Institute in Moscow supported by The Embassy of Italy in Russia. "There is a long, historical connection between Italy and Russia in the field of cinema," Venice Film Festival managing director Luigi Cuciniello said in an interview. "There was always a strong link of artistic influences despite huge political differences. I feel that both countries have always shared a similar vision of the artistic value of cinema." "Bringing the films to Moscow is an attempt to spread the news about new Italian film," Cuciniello said. "All over the world Italian cinema is known for the successes of the 1950s and '60s - neorealism, the films of Visconti, Fellini, this great tradition. We want the festival to stress that nowadays we also have many great new directors," Cucinello said. "This is one of the missions of the Italian Film Festival here, to find distributors and audiences for these films all over the world." "Compared to Cannes and Berlin, the Venice Film Festival is about new talent," said Naum Kleiman, the manager of the Moscow State Central Cinema Museum. "We want to lend a helping hand to directors who may find it hard to get their films shown here."
Part of the appeal of the festival for lovers of cinema is the participation of actors and directors flown in from Italy to give talks and discussions on their entries. Director Davide Ferrario, whose documentary focuses on the utopia of progress which existed during a large part of the 20th century, will be a guest of the festival in 2015. The film made with archive footage from big Italian businesses (from the National Industry Film Archive) that show the often irresponsible energy that went hand in hand with the industrialisation process in Italy.
The films will be demonstrated in Italian with Russian subtitles.
Festival Films
The Opening Film
 Il Giovane Favoloso. Drama / History Italy 2014, 137 min. Directed by Mario Martone. Starring: Elio Germano, Michele Riondino, Massimo Popolizio, Anna Mouglalis, Paolo Graziosi. In Italian, Greek, French, Neapolitan with Russian subtitles. Awards and festivals: Venice Film Festival - Best Actor, Best Score; Capri International Film Festival - Best Director. Hailed as the finest Italian writer since Dante, Leopardi viewed nature as all-conquering, all-consuming and geared towards disaster - at least for the human beings that it holds in its grasp. Mario Martone's handsome period biopic paints the poet as an intense and sickly youth, given to prostrating himself on riverbanks and peering so closely at books that you fear he might lick them. Leopardi is pulled by agony in one direction and ecstasy in the other. Sooner or later he is sure to break down. Il Giovane Favoloso rolls into Venice as one of three Italian films in this year's competition, although it may be too tasteful and heavy to excite a jury reportedly on the look-out for more radical work. Even so, the film has much going its way. It's a sweeping, swooning historical drama, unashamedly high-flown and performed with conviction. It blooms and then withers like some big fragrant orchid. When we first meet Leopardi, he's the hot-housed son of Italian nobility, the apple of his father's eye. He's being groomed for the priesthood, but that's not for him. He's penning verse in a frenzy, talking nineteen to the dozen, and questioning everything ("He who doubts knows the most of all"). Leopardi wants to kick out the doors of his family home and see some of the world before it eats him alive. The tale proceeds to bounce him on to 19th-century Florence, where his career is hobbled by the Catholic Church, and finally to Naples, with its noise and its colour. "It's a city dominated by nature," Leopardi explains. "And I will finally be able to live it as it comes." By this point, however, his health is failing; so alarming the landlady that she fears he's contagious. Leopardi, it transpires, is not above giving a nature a little nudge in the right direction. When a visiting doctor prescribes a strict diet of fish and green veg, he promptly orders ice-cream instead. Germano manages a terrific job in the role of Leopardi, where his twisted, writhing writhing movements suggest that the poet's need to write may have been as much an affliction as his physical ailments. It's just as well that the actor is so good, because the film heaps so much baggage upon the man's hunched little shoulders. Il Giovane Favoloso provides viewers with an exhaustive (and borderline exhausting) voyage around its subject; the script ringing with rapid-fire poetry and philosophy that you long to have the chance to pause and consider at leisure.
Fiction Films
 Senza Nnessuna Pietà. Drama. Italy 2014, 95 min. Directed by Michele Alhaique. Starring: Pierfrancesco Favino, Greta Scarano, Claudio Gioè, Adriano Giannini, Ninetto Davoli. In Italian with Russian subtitles. Awards and festivals: Venice Film Festival - Special Mention. A stone mason (Pierfrancesco Favino) who moonlights as a debt collector for the Mafia gets into trouble when he helps out a pretty prostitute (Greta Scarano) in Senza Nnessuna Pietà, an adequately made but cliché-ridden feature debut for actor-turned-director Michele Alhaique. Debuting in Venice's Horizons strand, the film features solid performances and nicely evokes the unlovely suburban shabbiness of Rome's outskirts. Mimmo (Favino, who's taken supporting roles in Rush and World War Z) is a big glowering bear of a man who mostly works on building sites and is well-liked as a stern but fair boss by his underlings. But when his mobster uncle Santili (Ninetto Davoli) needs some muscle to collect from debtors, Mimmo is partnered with motormouth hoodlum Il Roscio (Claudio Gioe) to break bones and bring home cash. Mimmo doesn't like this wetwork, but it's the family business. He likes taking orders from his cousin, Santili’s sleazy son Manuel (Adriano Giannini), even less, but he feels he has no choice when he's assigned to meet and greet reputed prostitute Tanya (Scarano), who's been hired to entertain at one of Manuel's upcoming bunga bunga parties. There's a mix-up over which day the party is on, so Mimmo ends up having to put Tanya at his house overnight and generally keep an eye on her until she's needed at Manuel's. This gives them just enough time to form a tentative respect, maybe even an attraction, for one another after the obligatory argumentative introduction. When Manuel starts up some sadistic sex play with Tanya before the party, Mimmo steps in to stop him with violent results, and Mimmo and Tanya go on the run. They take shelter at the seaside home of Mimmo's Caribbean housekeeper, Pilar (Iris Peynado), a noble-immigrant character that's almost as much of a stereotype as Tanya's tough-but-secretly-fragile tart with a heart. Inevitably, Mimmo's family and former associates come to hunt them down, but not before he and Tanya have a chance to fall in love, have sex and dream doomed dreams of building a life together somewhere else. Fat chance of that working out.
Perez. Drama / Thriller. Italy 2014, 94 min. Directed byy Edoardo De Angelis. Starring: Luca Zingaretti, Marco D'Amore, Loredana Simioli, Simona Tabasco, Salvatore Cantalupo. In Italian with Russian subtitles. Perez is an incorruptible lawyer who lives and works at the Centro Direzionale of Naples and, as a result of dangerous personal affairs, will completely change way of life and begin to break every rule, for the sake of his daughter.
 Anime Nere. Drama. Italy, France 2014, 103 min. Directed by Francesco Munzi. Starring: Marco Leonardi, Peppino Mazzotta, Fabrizio Ferracane, Barbora Bobulova, Anna Ferruzzo. In Italian with Russian subtitles. Awards and festivals: Venice Film Festival - Best Film, Mimmo Rotella Foudation Award. On the 29th September, 2014 Francesco Munzi's Anime Nere received a standing ovation in its press screening at the Venice Film Festival. The film was in competition for the Golden Lion along with Saverio Costanzo's Hungry Hearts and Mario Martone's Il Giovane Favoloso. Anime Nere is centred on the Calabrese branch of the Italian mafia called 'Ndrangheta and its based on a hard hitting novel by Gioacchino Criaco. This is the third film by the director and it seems to be the climax of his first two experiments, namely Saimir e Il resto della notte, which have a similar subject matter and direction style. The film tells a story of mafia, family and revenge in the Aspromonte region of Calabria, specifically in the town of Africo. The plot follows the exploits of a family composed of three brothers (played by Marco Leonardi, Fabrizio Ferracane and Peppino Mazzotta) who step in to defend the son of the eldest brother (who remained in Calabria, while the others have moved abroad on the back of their drug dealing "business") when he commits a "disrespectful" act towards a bar which is protected by a rival clan. The story unravels in a gritty plot based on revenge and retaliation. The 'Ndrangeta mentality and social code has spread its venom through Italy and Europe, with chapters of the story taking place in Holland and Milan. Interestingly, the film is all spoken in Calabrese dialect, making it quite difficult to grasp. The importance of the language though is central in the director's intent, as it symbolizes identity, the same identity which moves the characters in the film and which determines every action and reaction. The film is shot in Africo, the heart of organized crime of Calabria. People tried to dissuade the director from heading to the region to shoot, but the realistic location, as well as the choice of language, contribute to the gritty and realistic imagery. Important to say that this is not an equivalent, or a copy of Gomorrah, this film lives in a genre of its own, and the standing ovation it received at the Venice Film Festival are more than well deserved.
Documentaries
 Donne nel Mito: Sophia Racconta la Loren. Documentary. Italy 2014, 40 min. Directed by Marco Spagnoli. Starring: Sophia Loren, Lello Bersani, Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Marcello Mastroianni. In English, Italian, French with Russian subtitles. Sophia Loren's story told by Loren herself. The greatest Italian movie star of all time describes her life and career through a selection of the materials dating from between the fifties and the present day preserved in the archives of the Istituto Luce Cinecittà and the Rai. An exploration of the myth of a "unique" actor, relying exclusively on precious and sometimes rare archive footage, with a commentary in Loren's own words drawn from over half a century of interviews and firsthand accounts of the most important moments in her private life and her career. A documentary made to celebrate this great actor's eighty years and her immense charm and talent.
Italy in a Day. Documentary. Italy, UK 2014, 75 min. Directed by Gabriele Salvatores. Starring: Alessia Gatti, Valeria Cocco Valeria Cocco, Nikolas Grasso, Lorenzo Ciani, Antonio Rocco. In Italian with Russian subtitles. Awards and festivals: Venice Film Festival - Special Mention, Best Song. Take a day in the life of different people who don't know each other, who live in different places, each with their own personal story, hopes, dramas, worries, with only one common ground: being Italian. Give them a camera or a smartphone and ask them to film themselves during an ordinary day, trying to answer some questions such as "what are you scared of?", "what is love for you?". Add one of the most talented Italian movie directors and mix all the ingredients and what do you get? Italy in a Day is the latest movie experiment by Gabriele Salvatores. Italians have been asked to film themselves during a day (the 26th of October 2013), showing their life, habits and sharing their feelings about the future, their beliefs, hopes and fears with a camera or a smartphone and to contribute to the creation of the movie. Italy in a Day is an experiment, which wants to portray Italy through the Italians, their voices and eyes, going inside their lives and letting them decide what to show and share.
La Zuppa del Demonio. Documentary. Italy 2014, 75 min. Directed by Davide Ferrario. Starring: Giovanni Bissaca, Walter Leonardi. In Italian with Russian subtitles. Italy's industrial miracles of the twentieth century are explored in The Devil's Soup (La Zuppa del Demonio), a documentary by director Davide Ferrario that combines an impressive range of archive footage, some of it shot by famous Italian directors such as Ermanno Olmi and Dino Risi, and snippets of literary texts from the time, from poets and writers such as Dino Buzzati, Italo Calvino, Primo Levi and Pier Paolo Pasolini, often to thought-provoking effect.
Schedule
3 March, Tuesday
19:30 - Il Giovane Favoloso
4 March, Wednesday
19:00 - Donne nel Mito: Sophia Racconta la Loren
20:30 - La Zuppa del Demonio. Q&A: Davide Ferrario
5 March, Thursday
19:00 - Italy in a Day
21:00 - Il Giovane Favoloso
6 March, Friday
19:00 - Anime Nere
21:00 - Senza Nessuna Pietà
7 March, Saturday
18:00 - Perez.
20:00 - Italy in a Day
More info
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