With its impressive line up of acclaimed and award-winning films from Italy’s most talented film-makers, the 8th edition of the festival promises to be the best yet.
Award-winning NZ-Italian film director, writer and actor Paolo Rotondo, the Festival’s Artistic Director and curator of the programme, describes the event as the best in contemporary Italian cinema combined with masterpieces from Italy’s rich cinematic tradition. Rotondo says that as an Italo-NZer he felt a responsibility to represent Italy in an authentic way and choose movies that express the current Italian zeitgeist really well.
Love is a central theme throughout the selection of thrillers, drama and comedy. “The films offer genuinely new, unexpected and original takes on the subject, with some lovely perspectives on both romantic and familial love,” explains Rotondo.
One of his favourite works is Superheroes: “For people to be in love for an entire lifetime takes a superhuman effort. The film depicts epic love stories over many years, never shying away from the difficulty of relationships, but is still beautiful and reassuring.”
Rotondo’s birthplace of Napoli features prominently in the films. “Napoli and its rich history is a world apart from the rest of Italy. Nostalgia is a reminder that it was one of the grandest, most civilised capitals long before London, Paris or New York. The depth of culture in every aspect is unparalleled.”
For all of the opening night screenings this year, Rotondo has intentionally chosen comedies about conflicts and how we unite to resolve them, saying, “with so much division and doom and gloom in the world right now I wanted to centre the opening night films around coming together. People watch so much on their TVs and devices at home on their own but it just can’t replace the tangible experience of being in the cinema, the sharing of group vibrations and laughing together. Sharing an emotion has so much resonance. It makes you feel like you are together, because you are.”
The Cinema Italiano Festival (Italian Film Festival) screens in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Waiheke Island, Matakana, Tauranga, Napier, Havelock North, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Nelson, Blenheim, Dunedin, Wanaka and Arrowtown.
Times and ticketing information available at: italianfilmfestivalnz.com
