Cape Times (South Africa)
October 12, 2007 Friday
e1 Edition

Classic Italian cinema at festival

JANE MAYNE

Federico Fellini will always be remembered for unforgettable
celluloid creations such as Satyricon and Roma.

This weekend, film buffs will be able to review Italy’s contribution
to international cinema at the Italian Film Festival, which screens
at Cinema Nouveau at the V&A Waterfront from today until Sunday.

Features included in the programme are Fellini’s 1960 classic La
Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life), as well as a Sophia Loren/Marcello
Mastroianni retrospective – they star in three films Una Giornata
Particolare (A Special Day), Ieri, Oggi E Domani (Yesterday, Today,
Tomorrow) and Matrimonio All’Iitaliana (Marriage Italian-Style).

Massimo Vigliar, producer of Matrimonio All’Iitaliana, who re-stored
Carlo Ponti’s original version of the film, said: "I am proud to
present my picture at this South African screening of Italian cinema.
It is also memorable that Matrimonio All’Iitaliana will be presented
a few days later in Rome to open the Rome Film Festival.

"On the same day, October 19, Sophia Loren will receive the
honourable award of the 2007 Rome Film Festival.

"She has chosen this film for the opening gala because she considers
the role of Filomenta the best of her illustrious career."

Some of the latest Italian re-leases also on show in Cape Town are
the 2007 Notturno Bus (Night Bus), Moshen Melliti’s acclaimed Io,
L’Altro (I, The Other) and the poignant La Masseria Delle Allodole
(The Lark Farm).

Producer Grazia Volpi says of La Masseria Delle Allodole: "It was
presented for the first time in Ar-menia at the beginning of July.

"I’ve always tried to embark on projects with a social commitment and
I am proud of this film which focuses on the Armenian genocide.

"It is our duty to tell the younger generations what happened, just
as it was important after the fall of Nazism or during the genocide
in the Balkans or the present hell raging in Africa, which is the
subject of my latest film project."

Early productions include director Mario Monicelli’s Armata
Brancaleone (For Love and Gold, 1966) with Vittorio Gassman,
Catherine Spaak and Gian Maria Volonté. In Armata Brancaleone, a
knight is robbed by brigands and left in a ditch. One of the
assailants talks his friend Brancaleone into taking up the knight’s
identity. Brancaleone becomes the brigands’ commander but the road to
Aurocastro is full of perils and unexpected adventures.

In director Ettore Scola’s Una Giornata Particolare (A Special Day,
1977), a fascist Rome celebrates Hitler’s visit to Mussolini. In a
working class tenement, Antonietta, wife to a fervent "black shirt"
fascist, cherishes a photographic album filled with Mussolini’s
pictures and famous words. Then she meets a neighbour who has lost
his job because he is a homosexual.

Films are screened in Italian with English sub-titles.

l Free entry. Tickets are available from the box office two hours
before screenings. See