Italian Film Festival 2008
April 4~19, 8:00 pm
Washington University, Brown Hall 100

Screenings are FREE
and open to general public.
In Italian with English subtitles.
All films in 35mm.

Friday, April 4
8:oo pm
IT'S NOT OUR FAULT
Director: Carlo Verdone
Cast: Carlo Verdone, Margherita Buy, Anita Caprioli, Antonio Catania, Lucia Sardo, Stefano Pesce
Year: 2002
Duration: 89 min.

Gegè, Luca, Gabriella, Chiara, Ernesto, Alfredo, Marco and Flavia all have in common the weekly hour in which they find themselves together for a group therapy session lead by elderly Dr. Lojacono. It is there that we see them for the first time. And they are so engrossed in their therapy that they do not even notice that the psychiatrist has died right before their eyes. After much soul searching, they decide to continue gathering weekly for self-led group thearpy.

Saturday, April 5 8:oo pm
ALONG THE RIDGE
Director: Kim Rossi Stuart
Cast: Kim Rossi Stuart, Barbora Bobulova, Alessandro Morace
Year: 2005
Duration: 108 min.

Tommy, an eleven-year-old, lives with his older sister Viola and their father Renato in Rome. Despite the absence of a maternal figure, the three have managed with much irony and spirit to keep the family going while overcoming many difficulties. The unexpected return of Stefania, the mother who has abandoned the family on numerous occasions, reopens old wounds. It is a difficult confrontation that results in the precocious assumption of responsibility by Tommy in his young life.

Friday, April 11
8:oo pm
A DINNER FOR THEM TO MEET
Director: Pupi Avati
Cast: Diego Abatantuono, Ines Sastre, Vanessa Incontrada, Violante Placido, Blas Roca Rey, Fabio Ferrari, Francesca Neri
Year: 2006
Duration: 99 min.

Set amidst the glittering Christmas decorations of modern-day Rome, the actor Sandro Lanza is definitely experiencing the most painful moment of his existence. He no longer plays in a TV series in which he starred for ten years, and has basically disappeared from the spotlight. Recovering in the hospital, his three daughters scattered throughout Europe, each with a different mother, come to his side: Ines who is a journalist in Paris; Clara, a young Spanish pediatrician married to Federico; and Betty, the youngest, who lives in Rome with her husband Matteo. The three sisters decide to introduce their father to the right woman.

Saturday, April 12
8:oo pm
ONCE YOU ARE BORN
Director: Marco Tullio Giordana
Cast: Alessio Boni, Michela Cescon, Matteo Gadola, Rodolfo Corsato
Year: 2005
Duration: 115 min.

Thirteen year-old Sandro is from Brescia in northern Italy, the only son of a family that in just two generations has achieved significant wealth. One night, during a sailing trip through the Mediterranean, Sandro falls into the sea, and the others on board notice too late. When they return to look for him, there is no sign of the boy. Although given up for dead, Sandro, instead, has managed to be rescued by a fishing boat carrying illegal immigrants to Italy. Thus, begins his adventurous return to Italy. Having confronted unknown expectations, rejections, hopes and disillusionments, Sandro has crossed over that thin line between adolescence and adulthood. And once over that threshold, nothing is like it was before.
From the novel by the same name of Maria Pace Ottieri.

Friday, Arpil 18
8:00 pm
MY BROTHER IS AN ONLY CHILD
Director: Daniele Luchetti
Cast: Riccardo Scamarcio, Elio Germano, Luca Zingaretti, Angela Finocchiario
Year: 2007
Duration: 100 min.

Accio and Manrico are two brothers who are at odds with each while other growing up in a small Italian town in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. The two brothers have opposite political beliefs, are in love with the same woman and through an endless confrontation, they live a period of their lives made of escaping, retuning, fighting and great passion. Inspired by the book “Il fasciocomunista” by Antonio Pennacchi.

Saturday, April 19
8:00 p.m.
RED LIKE THE SKY
Director: Cristiano Bortone
Cast: Paolo Sassanelli, Luca Capriotti, Marco Cocci, Simone Colombari, Rosanna Gentile, Francesca Maturanza
Year: 2005
Duration: 95 min.

It is 1970. Mirco, a Tuscan child in love with cinema, loses his eyesight in an accident. At that time, the law regards blind people as handicapped, and does not allow them to attend public school, and his parents are forced to send him to an institution. Here, the little boy finds an old reel-to-reel tape player and discovers that in slicing up the tape, piecing it back together and using only sounds, he can create fairy tales. As the people at the Institute try and stop him from pursuing his hobby, Mirco will gradually convince the other blind children to discover their own talents and normality.
The true story of Mirco Mencacci, who even though he was blind, became one of the most renown sound editors in Italian cinema.