Cinema Made in Italy | Institut francais du Royaume-Uni - French Institute in the U.K - Institut francais du Royaume-Uni

Fri 9 - Thu 15 Mar

Ciné Lumière is proud to host the second annual edition of the Italian Film Festival, with its new evocative title Cinema Made in Italy, organised by the Italian Cultural Institute and Cinecittà Luce. The launch week, from 8 to 15 March, will feature no less than 13 outstanding films at Ciné Lumière, most of them UK premieres, a wildly diverse selection that ranges from the science fiction drama The Last Man on Earth to the bittersweet teen romance Summer of Giacomo. Eight films have been chosen by Paolo Mereghetti, one of the foremost film critics, and two by Adrian Wooton, Chief Executive of Film London. For the rest of the month, screenings of Italian films on the theme of sport, in honour of the Olympic year, will take place in the Georgian splendour of the Italian Cultural Institute itself. Cinema Made in Italy is an event for cine-enthusiasts, fans of Italian film, movie media, distributors and anyone with an interest in film, and reflects the vitality and creativity of contemporary Italian cinema. As Italy and France share a long film tradition together, and to coincide with the festival, Ciné Lumière will dedicate its Sunday Classics in March to Franco-Italian co-production masterpieces ranging from Il Gattopardo to Puple Noon.

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Programme

Take it Easy

Scialla!

iff_scialla Bruno Beltrame has let it all hang out, for quite a while. All that’s left of his old talent as a writer is just enough to ghost-write 'other people’s books'. His passion for teaching has given way to a tiresome routine of tutoring equally apathetic students, including fifteen-year old Luca, who is as ignorant as the others, but vivacious and irreverent. One day the boy’s mother turns up, revealing a secret that turns Bruno’s life upside down: Luca is his son, a son he knew nothing about...

Screenings

Fri 9 Mar 6.30pm

Sat 10 Mar 4.30pm

The 6.30pm screening on 9 Mar will be followed by a Q&A with director Francesco Bruni and lead acress Barbora Bobulova

Islands

Isole

iff_islands This story takes place under the roof of a parsonage on the Tremiti islands. An eastern European bricklayer looking for work is befriended by a young woman who has retreated into silence and lives with a middle-aged priest. The priest is at war with his sister, the young woman is running from her past and the bricklayer is simply trying to survive. As their lives intermingle, emotions bubble to the surface.

Screenings

Fri 9 Mar 8.50pm

Sun 11 Mar 4.30pm

The 8.50pm screening on 9 Mar will be followed by a Q&A with director Stefano Chiantini

Summer of Giacomo

L'estate di giacomo

iff_summergicomo Summer in the north Italian countryside. Giacomo, a 19-year-old deaf teenager, goes to the river with his best friend Stefania for a picnic. Straying from their usual route, they end up getting lost and arrive at a place that is like a little paradise where they are free to be themselves. Over an afternoon, their childhood games take on sensual overtones until they realise that this interlude is no more than the bitter-sweet memory of an era that is already long lost in the past.

Screenings

Sat 10 Mar 6.30pm

Mon 12 Mar 4.30pm

The 6.30pm screening on 10 Mar will be followed by a Q&A with director Alessandro Comodin

Tatanka

iff_tatanka The movie deals with the story of Michele, who finds, thanks to boxing, an alternative to a life of crime. During his journey from the abyss of Caserta’s outskirts, to clandestine rings in Berlin, Michele becomes a man. Based on an extraordinary tale by Roberto Saviano, the director Giuseppe Gagliardi shows with a neorealist touch how the Camorra dominates the territory and the lives of those who grow up in the South of Italy.

Screenings

Sat 10 Mar 8.50pm

Wed 14 Mar 4.30pm

The 8.50pm screening on 10 Mar will be followed by a Q&A with director Giuseppe Gagliardi

Là-bas - A Criminal Education

Là-bas - educazione criminale

iff_labas Castel Volturno, 30 km from Naples. A Camorra commando breaks into a tailor’s shop managed by African immigrants, wildly shooting and killing six black men. Fed up with all the violence, Yssouf, a young immigrant, decides to break with his uncle Moses, who after promising him a better future in Italy as an honest artisan, turned him into the cynical leader of the local coke-dealing scene. A story blurring fiction and reality of a man's struggle for survival.

Screening

Sun 11 Mar 6.30pm

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Guido Lombardi

Li and the Poet

Io sono Li

iff_lipoet Li and the Poet tells the story of the romantic and difficult friendship between a young immigrant Chinese woman and a fisherman of Slavic origin, on an island in the Venetian lagoon, which is undergoing a period of economic and social change. The encounter between the people who have abandoned their roots and those who feel that their lives are deeply transformed by economic growth leads to a dream-like salvation, made possible by the charm of a place, Chioggia, the lagoon and the high Adriatic.

Screening

Sun 11 Mar 8.50pm

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Andrea Segre

The First on the List

I primi della lista

iff_firstlist The film is inspired by a true story that revolves around the date of June 1, 1970. After a season of student demonstrations and strikes of the working class in Pisa, a rumor spreads that a military coup is under way. Pino Masi, author of songs of struggle, decides to leave with two high school students. On their way to the Yugoslavian border, they face armed soldiers and assume that the worst is happening.

Screenings

Mon 12 Mar 6.30pm

Tue 13 Mar 4.30pm

The 6.30pm screening on 12 Mar will be followed by a Q&A with director Roan Johnson

My Tomorrow

Il mio domani

iff_tomorrow Why is it that every time Monica returns to her father's house, the grief and resentment tied to incidents of her youth re-emerge? Why is it that she senses a growing detachment from Vittorio Corradi, her boss and love? She will have to come to grisps with her past, find the courage to face the feeling having been betrayed by Vittorio and the disillusion of having believed in a job which she now discovers full of ambiguity and deceit.

Screening

Mon 12 Mar 8.50pm

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Marina Spada

Summer Games

Giochi d'estate

iff_summergames A brief interlude in the story of two couples on holiday at the sea. While Nic’s parents are trapped in a precarious relationship of mutual dependence, their twelve-year-old son acts out his father’s traumatising rages while playing with his friends. Marie, his peer, is deeply affected by her non-relationship with her father, and Nic tries to teach her how to dissociate from any form of feeling. However, both children end up experiencing the joys and the pain of first love, which changes their lives.

Screening

Tue 13 Mar 6.30pm

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with lead actor Antonio Merone

The Cardboard Village

Il villaggio di cartone

iff_cardboard A group of clandestine immigrants seeking protection find refuge in a church that's being closed down. In a circumstance of crisis and discouragement, the old priest and the refugees will discover the true meaning of the word 'solidarity' and realize that the church is much more than a place for liturgical ceremonies and golden altars.

Tue 13 Mar 8.50pm

Wed 14 Mar 6.30pm

The Last Man on Earth

L'ultimo terrestre

iff_lastman Aliens land on Earth to find a nation which is tired and disillusioned, steeped in economic crisis. The reaction caused by the arrival of these extra-terrestrials ranges from racism to bizarre mystic-religious interpretations. The film focuses on a particular character: Luca Bertacci, a man with huge relational problems. The presence of the extra-terrestrials changes everything. By the end of the film it’s almost impossible not to believe that they came to Earth just for him.

Screening

Wed 14 Mar 8.50pm

Rust

Ruggine

iff_rust For a gang of immigrant children living on the outskirts of a big city, an abandoned factory is a place of adventure and wonder. But their childish daydreams turn into nightmares when two girls are discovered among the ruins – raped and murdered. The children unmask the culprit – the local doctor – but, deeming that no one will believe them, decide to take the matter into their own hands. Thirty years later, Sandro, Carmine, Cinzia are still marked by the experience that has traumatically crushed the end of their childhood.

Screening

Thu 15 Mar 6.30pm

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Daniele Gaglianone

Kryptonite!

La kryptonite nella borsa

iff_kryptonite Every family has its secrets, but some are funnier than others! Peppino Sansone is 9, comes from a large and fairly chaotic family and has an older cousin, Gennaro, who thinks he is Superman. Peppino divides his days between the crazy and colourful world of his young aunt and uncle, and his home where his mum has shut herself away in an incomprehensible silence. But when Gennaro dies, Peppino's imagination rewrites reality to help him face up to the vicissitudes of his family and start to approach the adult world.