Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Lamerica, Sacred Silence, Hands Over the City

Pasquale Verdicchio
Professor, UCSD department of literature and board member, Cinema Sud Italian Film Festival

The South of Italy figures prominently as a setting in Italian cinema. The Cinema Sud Festival is particularly important because it features the work of Southern Italian filmmakers in a Southern setting. While historically we do find work by southern directors such as Vittorio De Sica, Ettore Scola, and, more recently, Gabriele Salvatores and Giuseppe Tornatore, it's with the 1990s that many new filmmakers emerge in a South that finds new energy and expression through the medium. Mario Martone, Antonio Capuano, Antonietta De Lillo, Vincenzo Marra, and Salvatore Mereu are some of these new artists, and some of their films screen at Cinema Sud, which presents a wonderful opportunity to experience new Italian cinema through films that are rare to find in any format. My suggestions for memorable films by Southern Italian directors are Gianni Amelio's Lamerica, Antonio Capuano's Sacred Silences, and Francesco Rosi's Hands over the City.

Lamerica
(Italy) 1995, New Yorker Video

Sacred Silence
(Italy) 2000, Picture This

Sponsored
Sponsored

Hands Over the City - Criterion Collection
(Italy) 2006, Criterion Collection

Clarissa Clo
Assistant professor and director of the Italian program, SDSU

Here are three must-see Italian movies all set in Southern Italy as those presented by Cinema Sud, where the south is both a physical and metaphorical space. Divorce Italian Style exemplifies commedia all'italiana. A biting satire of a Sicilian aristocrat (superbly played by Marcello Mastroianni) in love with his cousin and determined to kill his wife to escape marriage in pre-divorce Italy, confident in the protection of the chauvinistic honor code. Forty years later, Italian masculinity is called into question again in Children of Hannibal, a hilarious road comedy about two disillusioned men traveling from the North to Puglia at the rhythm of a pulsating Mediterranean soundtrack.

Respiro, set on the island of Lampedusa, is the story of a troubled woman (a wonderful Valeria Golino) who rebels against conventions and pays the consequences, much like the heroine of Del Perduto Amore (a young, feisty Giovanna Mezzogiorno) screening at Cinema Sud.

Divorce Italian Style - Criterion Collection
(Italy) 1961, Criterion Collection

Children of Hannibal (Figli di Annibale)
(Italy) 1998, TLA

Respiro
(Italy) 2002, Sony Pictures

Victor A. Laruccia
Chief administrator, Cinema Sud Italian Film Festival, www.cinemasud.com

I love movies and have taught movies at UCSD, to grade-schoolers, and at the Italian Settlement House in Providence. I adore Italian culture. My worlds collide in our Cinema Sud Film Festival. Here are amazing films that reveal unique Italian storytelling. Nostalgia and anger routinely animate movies about childhood. Italians do it differently. In I'm Not Scared, Gabriele Salvatores (director of bittersweet stories of characters exhausting their utopian dreams) may have discovered the fountain of heroism -- a kind of magical storytelling a young boy uses to save another boy.We can also find special storytelling magic in Ciao Professore, where the lives and stories of children in a poor Naples area educate the teacher about what's important.

For a special twist on storytelling, watch L'Uomo delle Stele, the Sicilian travels of a silver-tongued seller of movie fantasies who at heart still believes in art enough to get conned himself.

I'm Not Scared
(Italy) 2003, Miramax

Ciao, Professore!
(Italy) 1992, Miramax

L' Uomo delle stelle [Region 2]
(Italy) 1995, Miramax

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Flowering pear trees in Kensington not that nice

Empty dirt plots in front of Ken Cinema
Next Article

San Diego's Uptown Planners challenged by renters from Vibrant Uptown

Two La Jolla planning groups fight for predominance

Pasquale Verdicchio
Professor, UCSD department of literature and board member, Cinema Sud Italian Film Festival

The South of Italy figures prominently as a setting in Italian cinema. The Cinema Sud Festival is particularly important because it features the work of Southern Italian filmmakers in a Southern setting. While historically we do find work by southern directors such as Vittorio De Sica, Ettore Scola, and, more recently, Gabriele Salvatores and Giuseppe Tornatore, it's with the 1990s that many new filmmakers emerge in a South that finds new energy and expression through the medium. Mario Martone, Antonio Capuano, Antonietta De Lillo, Vincenzo Marra, and Salvatore Mereu are some of these new artists, and some of their films screen at Cinema Sud, which presents a wonderful opportunity to experience new Italian cinema through films that are rare to find in any format. My suggestions for memorable films by Southern Italian directors are Gianni Amelio's Lamerica, Antonio Capuano's Sacred Silences, and Francesco Rosi's Hands over the City.

Lamerica
(Italy) 1995, New Yorker Video

Sacred Silence
(Italy) 2000, Picture This

Sponsored
Sponsored

Hands Over the City - Criterion Collection
(Italy) 2006, Criterion Collection

Clarissa Clo
Assistant professor and director of the Italian program, SDSU

Here are three must-see Italian movies all set in Southern Italy as those presented by Cinema Sud, where the south is both a physical and metaphorical space. Divorce Italian Style exemplifies commedia all'italiana. A biting satire of a Sicilian aristocrat (superbly played by Marcello Mastroianni) in love with his cousin and determined to kill his wife to escape marriage in pre-divorce Italy, confident in the protection of the chauvinistic honor code. Forty years later, Italian masculinity is called into question again in Children of Hannibal, a hilarious road comedy about two disillusioned men traveling from the North to Puglia at the rhythm of a pulsating Mediterranean soundtrack.

Respiro, set on the island of Lampedusa, is the story of a troubled woman (a wonderful Valeria Golino) who rebels against conventions and pays the consequences, much like the heroine of Del Perduto Amore (a young, feisty Giovanna Mezzogiorno) screening at Cinema Sud.

Divorce Italian Style - Criterion Collection
(Italy) 1961, Criterion Collection

Children of Hannibal (Figli di Annibale)
(Italy) 1998, TLA

Respiro
(Italy) 2002, Sony Pictures

Victor A. Laruccia
Chief administrator, Cinema Sud Italian Film Festival, www.cinemasud.com

I love movies and have taught movies at UCSD, to grade-schoolers, and at the Italian Settlement House in Providence. I adore Italian culture. My worlds collide in our Cinema Sud Film Festival. Here are amazing films that reveal unique Italian storytelling. Nostalgia and anger routinely animate movies about childhood. Italians do it differently. In I'm Not Scared, Gabriele Salvatores (director of bittersweet stories of characters exhausting their utopian dreams) may have discovered the fountain of heroism -- a kind of magical storytelling a young boy uses to save another boy.We can also find special storytelling magic in Ciao Professore, where the lives and stories of children in a poor Naples area educate the teacher about what's important.

For a special twist on storytelling, watch L'Uomo delle Stele, the Sicilian travels of a silver-tongued seller of movie fantasies who at heart still believes in art enough to get conned himself.

I'm Not Scared
(Italy) 2003, Miramax

Ciao, Professore!
(Italy) 1992, Miramax

L' Uomo delle stelle [Region 2]
(Italy) 1995, Miramax

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Top Websites To Buy Instagram Likes + Bonus Tip!

Next Article

March is typically windy, Sage scents in the foothills

Butterflies may cross the county
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.