Cinema Italia: Perfect Strangers (Paolo Genovese, 2016)

By: börek - June 3rd, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 4 june 2023, Perfect Strangers [Perfetti sconosciuti] * Directed by Paolo Genovese * 96 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:30, film starts at 21:00. After the film, please engage and share comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!
Before the film * Selection of trailers of the 24 remakes made all over the world

We all have our secrets. The problem is, we keep them inside our smartphones. What happens if, during a dinner among friends, we let everybody listen to calls, read our messages, and so on?

Perfect Strangers is the film that has more remakes than any other in the entire history of cinema: from Spain (Perfectos desconocidos) to Greece (Τέλειοι ξένοι), from China, India until, recently, to Iceland (Villibráð). Why? Because it tells a truly universal story of our times: how our most intimate aspects of our lives changed forever because of the pervasiveness of smartphones in all aspects of our lives, including Romantic relationships, marriages (they may coincide or not), and — of course — sexual desires.

Beware: if you are in a happy, stable, relationship, you may want NOT to watch this!

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Cinema Italia: The Country Boy (Franco Castellano and Giuseppe Moccia, 1984)

By: börek - May 3rd, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 7 may 2023, THE COUNTRY BOY [IL RAGAZZO DI CAMPAGNA] * Directed by Franco Castellano and Giuseppe Moccia * 92 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage and share comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!
BEFORE THE FILM * Video * Punx Creatività e Rabbia Punk Milano 1984 (by Elisabetta “Betty 23” Altomare)

According to the UN, more than half of the population of the world is urbanized. This film tells the story of a young man from a rural area coming to Milan in the 1980s, where the local government was suffocating alternatives and protests (as seen in the video before the film). Edonism, consumerism started to become mainstream, and eventually it was that version of Milan which became the cradle of berlusconism, and the deep transformation of Italy, for the worse.
The Cradle Boy is a gentle, poetic film, with a touch of humour, and a couple of surrealist moments. It’s an absolute cult film in Italy, starring the comedian Renato Pozzetto in his best role ever.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Cinema Italia: Comrade Don Camillo (Luigi Comencini, 1965)

By: börek - April 1st, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 2nd april 2023, Il compagno Don Camillo (1965), Comrade Don Camillo * Directed by Luigi Comencini * 109 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage and share comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Also known in English as ‘Don Camillo in Moscow’, this feature film was originally released in Italian, French and Russian. Based on the novels of Giovannino Guareschi, the priest Don Camillo iconically represents the point of view of the popular classes supporting the Democrazia Cristiana party in the aftermath of WW2, while his opponent, Peppone, the mayor of a small town in the Northern part of the country, is the champion of the Partito Comunista Italiano. If Pier Paolo Pasolini incarnates the tragic, Dionysian approach to Catholicism in Italy, Guareschi represents its comic, lightweight approach. The archival documentary film La Rabbia (The Anger, 1963) directed in the first half by Pasolini and in the second half by Guareschi, immortalizes this reading, and the respect that the one tributes to the other.

There are five feature films, released between 1952 and 1965 as French-Italian co-productions, inspired by the novels and drawings by Guareschi. The two actors, Fernandel (Don Camillo) and Gino Cervi (Peppone) resemble the drawings in an astonishing way. This feature film is the last of the series, and it’s directed — unlike the previous ones — by Luigi Comencini, one of the most relevant director of Italian neorealism: in particular, he directed Vittorio De Sica and Gina Lollobrigida (Pane, amore e fantasia, 1953), Alberto Sordi (Tutti a casa, 1960), and in the almost forgotten jewel Italian Secret Service (original title in English, 1968), starring Nino Manfredi and Françoise Prévost.

Comrade Don Camillo brings the stereotypical division of post-WW2 Italy into a surrealistic perception. The film goes even beyond that, as it narrates a story of hetero cis male friendship, nonetheless not without ambiguities, and the complex relation of the Italian communists with Russia, after the death of his most important leader, Palmiro Togliatti who passed away in Yalta, the 21st of August 1964.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Cinema Italia: The Seduction of Mimi (Lina Wertmüller, 1972)

By: börek - March 3rd, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 5th March 2023, The Seduction of Mimi [Mimì metallurgico ferito nell’onore] * Directed by Lina Wertmüller * 125 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage and share comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Mimì (Giancarlo Giannini) is a man raised in Sicily, where you have to compromise with the mafia to have a job. Far from being a classic hero, he expresses almost hyper-realistically the prototype of toxic masculinity from the South. He moves to Turin so to stay loyal to his principles, vaguely revolutionary.
Fiore (Mariangela Melato) is a working class woman from Milan who is hoping to find her way in life. The meeting-contrast between the two comrades is iconically depicting the differences between North and South, the contradictions of the Left, the role of the Partito Comunista Italiano. In the background, an Italy under siege of violence by terrorism in the streets of industrial and university cities like Milan or Turin.
Lina Wertmüller was the first female director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director ever. Her gentle touch, expressed by the colours and music of the soundtrack, results in a unique dreamy palette that became her cinematic signature.
This film screens as the female protagonist a fascinating Mariangela Melato, who passed ten years ago. She incarnated a new model of Italian female beauty, in contrast with Sofia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. Fiore is one of her most famous interpretation.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Cinema Italia: Not Of This World (Giuseppe Piccioni, 1999)

By: börek - February 5th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 5th February 2023, Cinema Italia: Fuori dal mondo [Not Of This World] (1999) * Directed by Giuseppe Piccioni * 100 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening.

What does it mean to become a nun in Italy by the end of the 20th century? Caterina has taken temporary vows and is walking in a park. One day she meets a man who gives her an abandoned baby. This encounter will change her life forever. Giuseppe Piccioni introduces us to a secret world of the Roman Catholic Church with a gentle touch and a sharp eye. We are invited to think about the relationship between individual choices and the society we decide to live in.
Far from being only an unusual portrait of Italy — with a soundtrack by Ludovico Einaudi –, this feature film has a universal message about the reasons why we are in this world and what our purpose is in life. Not Of This World is a forgotten jewel of Italian cinema, almost neglected in Italy because of the topic, which is, in many ways, still taboo in the country.
Winner of 5 David di Donatello, including best actress to Margherita Buy, in one of her more complex roles ever.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Cinema Italia: Caos calmo (Alessandro Grimaldi, 2008)

By: börek - December 1st, 2022  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 3rd December 2022, Cinema Italia: Caos calmo [Quiet Chaos]. Directed by Alessandro Grimaldi, 2008 * 104 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

What may happen to a grown-up man, when a tragedy strikes him, unexpectedly and without any reason? In the case of the protagonist of this film, Pietro Paladini, interpreted by Nanni Moretti, he enters a state of ‘quiet chaos’, a kind of suspension that makes him retreat from social contact. Unlike what others would have done, Pietro Paladini does not fight back against this quiet chaos but embraces it. Instead of talking, he listens. And waits. This film tells the life journey of Pietro and his encounters with many people, the most diverse, from his brother to a foreigner, Steiner, interpreted by Roman Polański. It is a story of death and rebirth. It is a hymn to the possibility of changing the world for the better, even when the world seems to work against you.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Cinema Italia: Sostiene Pereira (Roberto Faenza, 1995)

By: börek - November 2nd, 2022  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 27 November 2022, Cinema Italia: Sostiene Pereira (Roberto Faenza, 1995)* 104 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Based on the homonymous novel by Antonio Tabucchi, this Italian drama is set in Lisbon, in the days when Salazar’s dictatorship was getting into power, in 1932. Pereira is the editor of the cultural pages of a supposedly independent paper. He is a translator into Portuguese of contemporary French literature and is obsessed with the idea of death and the biographies of writers, poets, and novelists. An unexpected event brings him out of his comfort zone, fronting his past, present and future.

Pereira is interpreted by Marcello Mastroianni, who will pass away a few months after the publication of this film. He was awarded the David di Donatello as Best Actor for this role. It also is an occasion to see an icon of Italian beauty and passion in his last season of life, in a film that goes to the essence of cinematography and the meaning of life.

Sostiene Pereira is a film that talks about the passage from democracy to fascism, which is an actual theme in many countries across Europe nowadays. Interestingly, the title was translated According to Pereira in English, Pereira prétend in French, Afirma Pereira in Portugal and Páginas da revolução in Brazil.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Cinema Italia: Selfie (Agostino Ferrente, 2019)

By: börek - October 20th, 2022  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 30 October 2022, Cinema Italia: Selfie (Agostino Ferrente, 2019), 78 minutes. In Neapolitan and Italian with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, Film starts at 20:30.

This documentary has been shot by Neapolitan teenagers living in Traiano, a neighbourhood where Camorra, the local Mafia, is an everyday presence. And yet their stories tell not only about violence but also friendship, hope, and intimate relations. The director gave a phone to them, letting them choose the way to tell their lives. A film made possible by smartphones only, where subjectivity and objectivity are inextricably intertwined in a unique mix, that opens a window to an angle of the world otherwise impossible to see for outsiders.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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