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 THE LAVAZZA ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL, currently touring Australia’s state capitals, will visit Brisbane for just under three weeks from the 30th of September. TIM MILFULL recently had a sneak opportunity to check out what’s in store for local audiences during the festival’s 10th Anniversary program.
2009 marks ten years of touring Italian films around Australia, and the organisers of the Lavazza Italian Film Festival have marked their special anniversary by spicing their already exotic programme of almost twenty feature films with a special opportunity to revisit some of the success stories of their showcase over the last decade. Festival Director Antonio Zeccola personally selected ten of his favourite contemporary Italian features from previous festivals – all films that did not have commercial release in Australia – and offers audiences a chance to share in his nostalgia, or take the chance to enjoy something new.
And there’s a pleasing mix of new and nostalgic in IFF’s Opening and Closing Night films, with Marco Bellochio’s award-winning Vincere – a drama based on one of the forgotten influences of the 20th century: Benito Mussolini’s first wife, Ida Dalsar – offering a perfect bookend to a very special screening of Federico Fellini’s 1960 classic, La Dolce Vita, starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, and fuelled at the after-party by Italian vodka. And over the intervening three weeks between Mussolini and Fellini, festival programmers have assembled an impressive array of contemporary Italian fare.
With the insidious ebb and flow of corruption in Italy still generating stories like last year’s Gomorra and reminding us that the more things change, the more they stay the same, it is prudent to examine the roots of these various evils, and at least three films at this year’s IFF focus on the mafia, cosa nostra, camorra – call it what you will. Fortapàsc, Brave Men, and The Sicilian Girl all examine the ways in which ordinary people fight corruption in their hometowns.
 In Fortapàsc, aspiring journalist Giancarlo Siani (Libero De Rienzo) has tired of squatting at his local rag writing puff pieces for an editor happy with the status quo. His hopes of becoming an accredited journalist seem slim, but when he and his photographer witness a conversation between a local mobster and a government official, Giancarlo takes matters into his own hands and conducts an investigation that will ultimately lead to his death. The Sicilian Girl follows similar territory, but with even more personal undertones. In the early nineties, a 17 year-old girl walked into a prosecutor’s office and presented a decade’s worth of diaries documenting the movements of mafia in her village. She wanted vengeance for the murders of her father and brother, but not even that trauma could prepare her for the backlash Rita Atria (Veronica D’Agostino) would feel from the Sicilian community.
"...over the intervening three weeks between Mussolini and Fellini, festival programmers have assembled an impressive array of contemporary Italian fare."
In a similar fictional drama, Brave Men follows the story of three childhood friends whose lives disintegrate into animosity and tragedy in their 30s. Ignazio (Fabrizio Gifuni) disappears from the slums of Lecce to study law, while the tomboy Lucia (Donatella Finochiaro) takes on a role as an enforcer, and Fabio (Lamberti Probo) falls prey to narcotics. When the latter takes one dose too many, Lucia and Ignazio are reunited, and with their chosen career paths, things will never end well.
For something a little more personal and not involving horse heads in beds, audiences might consider the thrillers, melodrama and tragedy offered at this year’s IFF. In The Man Who Loves, the ever-gorgeous Monica Belluci’s Alba and Sara (Ksenia Rappoport) are poorly treated by the rather wet Roberto (Pierfranceso Favino) as he vacillates between infatuation and commitment-phobia; while Ferzan Ozpetek offers a disturbing study of obsession in A Perfect Day, as a bodyguard Antonia (Valerio Mastandrea) grapples with the breakdown of his marriage. And featuring a frightening performance by Michele Riondino (also in Fortapàsc) The Past Is A Foreign Land unfolds the story of the young law student, Giorgio (Elio Germano – who stars in four of this festival’s films) who destroys his life after discovering a talent for poker.
 Perhaps my favourite film, though, was The Right Distance, which – like Fortapàsc – witnesses the travails of a young aspiring journalist in the Po River flatlands. When a letter of complaint to the editor of a regional paper leads to an anonymous gossip column, Giovanni (Giovanni Capovilla) suddenly finds himself searching for the pulse of his district. And the arrival of the beautiful relief teacher, Mara (Valentina Lodovini) is a perfect catalyst for talk around town, especially in the local garage, where the softly-spoken Hassan (Ahmed Hefiane) develops a twinkle in his eye. Things don’t necessarily end well in this quirky little film, but director Carlo Mazzacurati takes advantage of his location to tell a compelling story.
THE 2009 LAVAZZA ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL runs at Palace Centro and Barracks Cinemas from Wednesday Sep 30 to Sunday Oct 18. For the full program and ticketing details, see www.italianfilmfestival.com.au.
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