The ST. ALi Italian Film Festival is back and will screen (hopefully) nationally from 29 September. The flagship event will showcase Italian culture, stories and language in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Byron Bay at reduced capacity and then in Melbourne, when restrictions permit. The festival opens with a new live-action version of the…
How can you stand up to a bully? That’s the question at the centre of the crime drama Dogman. Timid dog groomer Marcello is separated from the mother of his young daughter, whom he adores … and vice versa. He lives in a barren, downtrodden Italian neighbourhood and gets on well with everyone. To make…
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) this isn’t. I found the absurdist My Big Gay Italian Wedding an embarrassment. Based on a long running off-Broadway play by Anthony J. Wilkinson, co-writer and director Alessandro Genovesi tells the story of a troubled trip to the altar. When Antonio (Cristiano Caccamo) pops the question to his boyfriend…
Loro is a bloated two and a half hour indulgence that serves up pure unadulterated hedonism. Co-written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty), the film is about Italian media tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi (Toni Servillo) between 2006 to 2010. In this fictional account, Sorrentino speculates on what may or may not have taken…
Roots Magic is a quartet of Italian musicians: Alberto Popolla on clarinet and bass clarinet, Errico De Fabritiis on alto and baritone saxophone, Gianfranco Tedeschi on bass, and Fabrizio Spera on drums. Their second release on Clean Feed records continues the band’s deep engagement with African-American delta blues and experimental jazz. The late, great Lester…
A perennial festival favourite, the Lavazza Italian Film Festival screens at Palace Cinemas around Australia in September. Italian/Australian actor Greta Scacchi is on board as this year’s Festival Ambassador. She’ll be participating in Q&As at selected festival screenings of Tenderness (La Tenerezza), Gianni Amelio’s latest film, in which Scacchi features. The opening night film is…
Happiness is the name of the game for two inpatients at a progressive psychiatric institution, both of whom are trying to attain it in Like Crazy. Beatrice speaks at a thousand miles an hour and is easily worked up. She is a self-styled billionaire countess who likes to believe she is on intimate terms with…
