From Italy, with love and drama
- Kate Herbert
- From: Herald Sun
- September 13, 2011 12:00AM
IF YOU thought Italian cinema couldn't get any better, the Lavazza Italian Film Festival has outdone itself with 30 inspiring Italian movies comprising dramas, thrillers, documentaries and comedies boasting Europe's finest actors and directors.
Una Vita Tranquilla (A Quiet Life), by Claudio Cupellini, is a riveting, atmospheric, crime thriller about Rosario (Toni Servillo), an Italian whose tranquil existence crumbles slowly and inexorably when his murky past overtakes his fragile new life running a restaurant in Germany.
Servillo, who features in four festival movies, is compelling as Rosario, struggling to avoid chaos when two Italian thugs check into his hotel and threaten to reveal his dark secrets.
L'amore Buio (Dark Love), by Antonio Capuano, is a surprisingly sweet but disturbing story charting the lives of Irene (Irene De Angelis), a teenage rape victim, and Ciro, her 15-year old rapist (Gabriele Agrio) who spends years in detention struggling to understand his crime.
In contrast, Rocco Papaleo's award-winning Basilicata Coast to Coast is a quirky, poignant comedy with a message about following your dreams.
Nicola (Papaleo) enters his shabby, little quartet into a local music festival. He ridiculously proposes that, instead of driving two hours from their home to their destination on the opposite coast of Basilicata in Southern Italy, they walk for 10 days to get there and make a documentary en route.
Other films include: the box-office hit comedy Welcome to the South; Nanni Moretti's witty We Have A Pope; Passione, John Turturro's tribute to Neapolitan music; Robert De Niro starring with Monica Bellucci in The Ages of Love.
This 12th Italian Film Festival is a feast of tasty delights.
LAVAZZA ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL, Palace Cinemas, from Sep 13 until Oct 5
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