Italian Film Festival

All screening free and open to the public
Films are in Italian with English Subtitles

Il Sole dell'avvenire (2023), Nanni Moretti
April 20 @5:00 PM
Lorch Hall, Askwith Auditorium

Giovanni, an Italian film director with a wife in therapy and a producer on the verge of bankruptcy, has lost his faith in the future. Like his protagonist, a standard-bearer for L'Unità and head of Quarticciolo's Communist Party chapter, he wants to correct the course of a world moving in the wrong direction. His wife has decided to invest in a degenerate young director, his daughter wants to marry a much older man, and then there's Netflix, pumping out "fast cinema" antithetical to his own.

I Fratelli De Filippo (2021), Sergio Rubini
April 20 @ 7:00 PM
Lorch Hall, Askwith Auditorium

Siblings Peppino, Titina, and Eduardo live with their beautiful mother, Luisa De Filippo, in turn-of-the-century Naples. The family's father seems to be absent, but in reality he's there, hiding in plain sight as "uncle" Eduardo Scarpetta, the most acclaimed actor and playwright of his time. Scarpetta, while not recognizing his three natural children, introduced them to the world of theatre at an early age. Upon the death of the great actor, his legitimate children divided his inheritance, while Peppino, Titina, and Eduardo received nothing. To these three young people, however, "uncle" Scarpetta passed on a special gift, his great talent. The De Filippo story is that of a family wound transformed into art. And of three young people, who, by joining forces, give life to a completely new type of theatre.

Rapito (2023), Marco Bellocchio
April 21 @ 5:00 PM
Lorch Hall, Askwith Auditorium

In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope's soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they came to get Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. A maid had secretly baptized him when he was a baby, believing that he was at death's door. The law of the Papal States, which governed Bologna at the time, leaves no room for doubt: he is Catholic and must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo's parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community, the Mortaras’ battle soon took on a political dimension. But the Pope would not return the child and Edgardo was raised in the Catholic faith, despite the declining temporal power of the Church.

This event is part of the Italian Film Festival USA: https://italianfilmfests.org/detroit.html and co-sponsored by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Department of Film, TV, and Media.