The San Francisco Film Society's New Italian Cinema returns November 12–19, 2006, to Landmark's Embarcadero Center Cinemas for an eight-day series of Italian narrative features and shorts. Now in its tenth year, this window into today's Italy balances Opening and Closing Night films by established filmmakers with seven debut features paired with shorts. Something old, sure, but especially something new! What better way to appreciate Italian film?
The Opening Night film will be Marco Bellocchio's most recent venture The Wedding Director / Il regista di matrimoni—featured in the Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year—with Bellocchio present for the opening festivities as well as the festival's two-film retrospective, which includes his legendary 1965 debut feature Fists in the Pocket / I pugni in tasca and 2004's controversial Good Morning, Night / Buongiorno, notte.
The Closing Night film will be Vito Zagarrio's Three Days of Anarchy / Tre giorni d'anarchia (2004) which will bookend the Closing Night ceremony, wherein the City of Florence Awards will be handed out to the debut feature and short that festival audience members have ranked the highest.
The seven debut features in competition are Giovanni La Parola's . . . And if Tomorrow / E se domani . . . (2006); Carlo Luglio's Beneath the Same Moon / Sotto la stessa luna (2006); Lamberto Lambertini's Fire at My Heart / Fuoco su di me (2006); Gian Paolo Cugno's Salvatore—This Is Life / Salvatore—Questa è la vita (2005); Paolo Genovese and Luca Miniero's Sorry You Can't Get Through / Nessun messaggio in segreteria (2005); Francesco Amato's What the Hell Am I Doing Here! / Che ci faccio io qui! (2005); and Giorgio Diritti's The Wind Blows Round / Il vento fa il suo giro (2005).
