Overview

Italy, 1970s. Enrico Berlinguer serves as the Secretary of the largest Communist party in the Western world. With over 1.7 million members and more than 12 million voters, the party shares a bold vision: to achieve socialism through democracy. Defying the rigid divisions of the Cold War, Berlinguer and the Italian Communist Party (PCI) spent five years striving for power, engaging in unprecedented dialogue with the Christian Democracy and coming tantalizingly close to altering the course of history. Amid assassination attempts by the Bulgarian secret services, intense election campaigns, and delicate negotiations with Moscow, Berlinguer's journey is one of perseverance, risk, and ambition. The film chronicles this pivotal era, from the headlines that gripped the world to the dangerous dance with power, culminating in the tragic assassination of Aldo Moro, the President of the Christian Democracy, in 1978. Through it all, Berlinguer’s story is intertwined with that of a nation, where personal lives and politics are inseparable. When the path ahead seems blocked, must one surrender—or press on? 

Director

Andrea Segre

Producers

Marta Donzelli, Gregorio Paonessa, Francesco Bonsembiante

Cast

Elio Germano, Paolo Pierobon, Roberto Citran, Elena Radonicich, Fabrizia Sacchi, Paolo Calabresi, Andrea Pennacchi, Giorgio Tirabassi, Stefano Abbati, Francesco Acquaroli

Overview

From Academy Award-winning filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino comes a monumental and deeply romantic story of a lifetime. Born in the Bay of Naples in 1950, Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) searches for happiness over the long summers of her youth, falling in love with her home city and its many memorable characters. But when tragedy strikes, and carefree romances lose their thrill, she decides to seek a deeper sense of purpose. Featuring a captivating performance from Dalla Porta and an outstanding cast that includes Gary Oldman, Parthenope is another tale of great beauty from a master of modern cinema. 

Director

Paolo Sorrentino

Producers

Lorenzo Mieli, Ardavan Safaee, Paolo Sorrentino, Anthony Vaccarello

Cast

Celeste Dalla Porta, Stefania Sandrelli, Gary Oldman, Silvio Orlando, Luisa Ranieri, Peppe Lanzetta, Isabella Ferrari

Overview

A film director gathers his favorite actresses, those he worked with and those he loved. He wants to make a film about women but he doesn’t reveal much: he observes them, takes cue, until his imaginary throw them into another era, in a past where the noise of the sewing machines fills a workplace handled and populated by women, where men have minor and marginal roles and cinema can be told from another point of view: the one of costume. Between loneliness, passions, anxieties, heartbreaking absence and unbreakable bonds, reality and fiction permeate, as well as the lives of the actresses and those of the characters, the competition and the sisterhood, the visible and the invisible.

Director

Ferzan Özpetek

Producer

Marco Belardi

Cast

Luisa Ranieri, Jasmine Trinca, Sara Bosi, Loredana Cannata, Geppi Cucciari, Anna Ferzetti, Aurora Giovinazzo, Nicole Grimaudo, Milena Mancini, Paola Minaccioni, Stefano Accorsi

Overview

In Ripa di Porta Ticinese, on the Navigli, there is an apartment whose door is always open. Often crossing it are intellectuals, singers, journalists, but also simple onlookers. They are all there for her, Alda: 70 years old, polished nails, cigarette always lit, a chaos in which she is at ease. But what makes her so special? Her poetry, of course, but perhaps also her life without half - measures, which she herself recounts, with irony and sagacity, to a young intellectual, Arnoldo.

Director

Roberto Faenza

Producers

Fania Petrocchi, Elda Ferri

Cast

Laura Morante, Federico Cesari, Rosa Diletta Rossi, Giorgio Marchesi, Sofia D’Elia, Mariano Rigillo

The screening is organised in collaboration with the Italian Institute in London.

The mafia women mini film festival is a collaborative project between CinemaItaliaUK and Professor Felia Allum (University of Bath) with sponsorship from Jacobacci Avvocati, Turin. The aim of this mini film festival has been to shine a light on the gendered nature of mafias, to challenge the traditional narratives that portray women as minor, secondary and insignificant characters and to shift thinking away from the neutral-male centric perspective to one that sees and considers women as having their own agency independent of men. The first edition took place online during Covid in 2020 and this year will be the festival’s 5th edition and the last one for some time. During the 5 years, 17 mafia films & documentaries will have been shown following Giovanni Falcone’s wise words: ‘silence is the mafia’s greatest ally, and courage is its greatest enemy’.

Screenings:

15:30 - The Judge and the Mafia Boss (Il Giudice e il Boss)

18:30 - Sicilian Letters (Iddu)

Overview

It’s up to Gollum to tell us La storia del Frank e della Nina —only, he doesn’t speak, and has to write it on the wall. He’s the guardian of those words, the ones that can’t come out of his mouth, the ones he writes on buildings as if the city was a big amplifier. Frank has stopped existing a couple years back, but to make a living he sells homework outside of school. He’s waiting till he turns 18 to take the train and clear out. Frank’s version of reality is so compelling that we all believe him. Till he meets Nina. Practical and ambitious, she made the mistake of listening to the grownups and now she’s in trouble. Now life as she wants it is only in the pictures she takes. She is a mother and a wife. And she’s 16. She now knows that to be free she needs to study. She hires Frank to help with her middle school licence. But studying in itself is dangerous stuff in her situation. And the more they study, the more they get to know each other, they almost become a family, at least until reality catches up with them. Still, as Frank says, “reality is a point of view”—so then they might be able to write their own version of the story, after all.

Director

Paola Randi

Producers

Domenico Procacci, Laura Paolucci

Cast

Gabriele Monti, Ludovica Nasti, Samuele Teneggi

Overview

1944. In Vermiglio, a high mountain village of the Italian Alps where war looms as a distant but constant threat. The arrival of Pietro, a refugee soldier, disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever.

Director

Maura Delpero

Producers

Francesca Andreoli, Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli, Maura Delpero, Santiago Fondevila

Cast

Tommaso Ragno, Giuseppe De Domenico, Roberta Rovelli

Overview

At the dawn of the year 1800, not far from Venice, stands the Sant’Ignazio Institute, a cross between an orphanage, a conservatory, and a convent. For years now, it has been home for Teresa, a young woman with a special gift: a visionary talent that allows her to listen to the world around her and transform it, animating it with a new, contemporary, timeless music. An enchantment… that is shattered when reality makes an incursion and brings her back to her duties.

Gloria! speaks of the imagination, inventiveness and talent of all women composers who, like dried flowers, have remained hidden in the pages of history.

Director

Margherita Vicario

Producers

Valeria Jamonte, Manuela Melissano, Carlo Cresto-Dina, Katrin Renz

Cast

Galatéa Bellugi, Carlotta Gamba, Veronica Lucchesi

Overview

Caterino is a worker at the Ilva factory in Taranto. When the company executives decide to use him as a spy to identify the workers they should get rid of, Caterino starts to track his colleagues, in search of reasons to report them.

Director

Michele Riondino

Producer

Carlo Degli Esposti, Nicola Serra

Cast

Michele Riondino, Elio Germano, Vanessa Scalera

Overview

Flaminia, a wealthy Roman girl, is set to marry a diplomat's son when her autistic half-sister Ludovica barges into her life, exposing Flaminia's superficial existence. As they reconnect, an unexpected event threatens their newfound bond.

Director

Michela Giraud

Producers

Stefano Basso, Giuseppe Saccà, Agostino Saccà

Cast

Michela Giraud, Rita Abela, Antonello Fassari, Nina Soldano, Edoardo Purgatori, Catherine Bertoni de Laet, Ludovica Bizzaglia, Francesca Valtorta, Fabrizio Colica, Lucrezia Lante della Rovere, Enzo Salvi, Saverio Raimondo, Stefano Rapone, Daniele Tinti, Andrea Purgatori

Overview

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni deliver two of the finest performances of their careers in this moving, quietly subversive drama. Though it’s set in Rome on the historic day in 1938 when Benito Mussolini and the city first rolled out the red carpet for Adolf Hitler, the film takes place entirely in a working-class apartment building, where an unexpected friendship blossoms between a pair of people who haven’t joined the festivities: a conservative housewife and mother tending to her domestic duties and a liberal radio broadcaster awaiting deportation. Scola paints an exquisite portrait in muted tones, a story of two individuals helpless in the face of Fascism’s rise.

Director

Ettore Scola

Producer

Carlo Ponti

Cast

Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Françoise Berd, John Vernon, Alessandra Mussolini, Vittorio Guerrieri, Nicole Magny, Patrizia Basso, Tiziano De Persio, Maurizio Di Paolantonio, Antonio Garibaldi, Guido Notari

Overview

Arriving in the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park during a snowstorm, a

seasoned elementary school teacher, Michele Cortese, embarks on a new chapter of his

life. He faces a unique challenge late in his career – a teaching position far from Rome

in a school nestled in the heart of nature.

Agnese, the Vice-Principal and Michele together they form an unlikely duo with a

mission: to breathe life into a school threatened by dwindling enrolments.

As Michele acclimates to the picturesque setting and the multi-age class filled with

spirited children aged 7 to 10, he discovers that real education goes beyond textbooks.

With Agnese’s support and the camaraderie of the students, he sheds his metropolitan

veneer and becomes an integral part of the close-knit community.

However, just as everything seems to fall into place, a heartbreaking revelation shakes

the foundations of their newfound harmony: the school is set to close its doors in June

due to the stark decline in enrolments.

And so, the race against time begins. The film beautifully captures the essence of a

community coming together, transcending boundaries to save something they hold

dear.

Director

Riccardo Milani

Producers

Lorenzo Gangarossa, Mario Gianani, Roberto Leone

Cast

Antonio Albanese, Virginia Raffaele, Corrado Oddi, Sergio Meogrossi, Carmelo Gentile, Franca Di Cicco, Sergio Saltarelli, Nunzio Paolo Setta, Duilio Antonucc, Tiziano Gentile, Alessandra Barbonetti, Enzo De Sanctis, Donatella La Cesa, Solidea Pistilli, Bianca Maria Macro, Gianmarco Borsa, Guglielmo Casale, Andrea Decina Di Pirro, Mauro Marino

Overview

One of the most controversial choices in the season is the highly divisive Swept Away by Italian iconoclast Lina Wertmüller – the first woman ever nominated for a Best Director Oscar.

On an elegant yacht cruising off the coast of Sardinia, Raffaella (Mariangela Melato), a rich and stunning capitalist, enjoys tormenting Gennarino (Giancarlo Giannini), a Communist sailor. Fate weaves a different scenario and roles become reversed when the two find themselves stranded together on a deserted island.

Director

Guy Ritchie

Producer

Matthew Vaughn

Cast

Madonna, Adriano Giannin, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Elizabeth Banks, Bruce Greenwood, Michael Beattie, David Thornton, Beatrice Luzzi, Lorenzo Ciompi, Yorgo Voyagis, Patrizio Rispo, Ricardo Perna, Rosa Pianeta

Overview

Join us for the screening of Jealousy, Italian Style, (also known as The Pizza Triangle) by master of commedia all’italiana Ettore Scola: a tribute to Monica Vitti, the Queen of Italian Cinema, in one of her greatest comedic performances.

At a political rally, bricklayer Oreste (Marcello Mastroianni) sees flower girl Adelaide (Monica Vitti) and is so thoroughly smitten that he decides he must leave his wife for her. The pair's happiness doesn't last, however, as a young pizza chef named Nello (Giancarlo Giannini) also has eyes for Adelaide. He sends her a heart-shaped pizza pie and in no time has broken up their relationship. Adelaide leaves Oreste, who becomes passionately grief-stricken and considers suicide.Director

Overview

Ettore Scola

Producers

Pio Angeletti, Adriano De Micheli

Cast

Monica Vitti, Marcello Mastroianni, Giancarlo Giannini, Manuel Zarzo, Marisa Merlini, Hercules Cortes, Fernando Sánchez Polak, Gioia Desideri, Juan Diego, Bruno Scipioni, Josefina Serratosa, Giuseppe Maffioli, Corrado Gaipa, Natale Tulli, Jimmy il Fenomeno

Overview

Io capitano tells the story of the adventurous journey of Seydou and Moussa, two young men who leave Dakar to make their way to Europe. A contemporary Odyssey through the dangers and beauty of the desert, the shock of the detention centres in Libya and the perils of the sea as they cling to their hopes for a better life.

Director

Matteo Garrone

Producers

Matteo Garrone, Paolo Del Brocco

Cast

Seydou Sarr, Moustapha Fall, Issaka Sawagodo, Hichem Yacoubi, Doodou Sagna, Khady Sy, Venus Gueye, Cheick Oumar Diaw, Bamar Kane

Overview

Una squadra is a 2022 Italian documentary film directed by Domenico Procacci that chronicles the glory years of the Italian Davis Cup tennis team from 1976 to 1980. The film focuses on the legendary players Adriano Panatta, Corrado Barazzutti, Paolo Bertolucci, and Tonino Zugarelli, along with team captain Nicola Pietrangeli, and uses archive footage to explore their triumphs, rivalries, and the human drama surrounding their historic Davis Cup win against Chile in 1976.  

Director

Domenico Procacci

Producer

Domenico Procacci

Cast

Adriano Panatta, Corrado Barazzutti, Paolo Bertolucci, Tonino Zugarelli, Nicola Pietrangeli

Overview

This film, like many of Moretti’s films, is characterised by a mix of humour and profound reflection, allowing audiences to connect with the characters on both the intellectual and the emotional level.Starring Silvio Orlando, Margherita Buy and Barbara Bobulova as well as Nanni Moretti, the film centres on a film director who finds himself at a crossroads both on set and at home. With the formula of a film within a film, Moretti builds on the themes he first approached in Palombella Rossa: he still sings his heart out to Franco Battiato, he struggles to accept that people may not be like he wants them to, and he refuses to let go of his the dream even when defeat seems near…

Director

Nanni Moretti

Producers

Anne-Laure Labadie, Jean Labadie, Nanni Moretti, Domenico Procacci

Cast

Nanni Moretti, Margherita Buy, Valentina Romani, Silvio Orlando, Barbora Bobuľová, Flavio Furno, Mathieu Amalric, Zsolt Anger, Jerzy Stuhr, Teco Celio, Giuseppe Scoditti, Beniamino Marcone 

Overview

Wandering these rooms, hallways, salons is a lover, a collector and above all a reader of books: Umberto Eco in his private library.

Director

Davide Ferrario

Producers

Francesca Bocca, Davide Ferrario

Cast

Giuseppe Cederna, Carlotta Eco, Emanuele Eco, Pietro Eco, Stefano Eco, Umberto Eco, Riccardo Fedriga, Niccolò Ferrero, Paolo Giangrasso, Mariano Grondona, Walter Leonardi, Anita Eco Parini, Renate Eco Ramge, Mariella Valentini

The event is sponsored by the Italian Institute of Culture in collaboration with The Warburg Institute

IL Film Festival is an Italian short film festival based in London. A buzzing night to have a taste, in little bites, of Italian cinema. Run by 3 young Italian actors who made of London their new home, the Festival aim to bring closer the 2 worlds. Hit the link below for the full programme.

Overview

When Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina), a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò (Anthony Quinn) to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto (Richard Basehart), the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò. 

Director

Federico Fellini

Producers

Dino De Laurentiis, Carlo Ponti

Cast

Giulietta Masina, Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart, Aldo Silvani, Marcella Rovere, Livia Venturini, Mario Passante, Anna Primula, Pietro Ceccarelli, Nazzareno Zamperla, Giovanna Galli, Yami Kamedeva

Overview

A man who works as a motivator, a police officer, a former gymnast who lost the use of her legs, and an overweight teenager.  On a rainy night, they all find themselves together as "guests" of a mysterious individual who rescued them just moments before each of them was about to make the final decision of their life.

Director

Paolo Genovese

Producers

Raffaella Leone, Andrea Leone

Cast

Toni Servillo, Valerio Mastandrea, Margherita Buy, Sara Serraiocco, Gabriele Cristini, Vittoria Puccini, Lino Guanciale, Elena Lietti, Lidia Vitale, Thomas Trabacchi, Antonio Gerardi, Giorgio Tirabassi, Davide Combusti, Fabiola Morabito

Overview

Mario Martone takes a personal journey into the cinema of Massimo Troisi by editing clips from his films to show his greatness as a director and a comedian. Martone draws the actor's artistic curve from beginning to end, framing him within the climate of the time and Naples, the city they both belong to. Intertwined with this collection of memorable scenes are conversations with artists whose careers were influenced by their admiration for Troisi and industry insiders who wrote extensively about him. The list includes Francesco Piccolo, Paolo Sorrentino, Ficarra & Picone, cinema critics such as Goffredo Fofi, Sentieri Selvaggi magazine, and some of the makers of his posthumous work The Postman: Michael Radford and Roberto Perpignani. Among this array of celebrities who never personally met Troisi, the writer Anna Pavignano is a most notable exception. As his partner in life and career, she is a first-hand observer of his creative process and an invaluable collaborator to this movie, enriched by the precious unpublished material she disclosed for the occasion.

Director

Mario Martone

Producers

Fabrizio Donvito, Marco Cohen, Benedetto Habib, Daniel Campos Pavoncelli, Mauro Berardi

Cast

Mario Martone, Anna Pavignano, Paolo Sorrentino, Francesco Piccolo, Goffredo Fofi, Federico Chiacchiari, Demetrio Salvi, Ficarra e Picone, Michael Radford

For our members, you can use the DISCOUNT CODE:

to get tickets for only £9!

Overview

After forty years of exile in Argentina, Roberto, a blind novelist, comes back to Naples. Guided by his brother Lorenzo, a failed musician, he starts a journey of memory through the city of his youth. Though he cannot longer see, he perceives it through his remaining senses, his memories, and his imagination, in search of the tragic reason behind his departure.

Presented at the 2021 Turin Film Festival in the non-competitive programme, Santa Lucia won Best Film at the Edera Film Festival in 2022.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with film director and writer Marco Chiappetta.

Director

Marco Chiappetta

Producers

Angelo Curti, Maurizio Fiume, Flora Fiume, Davide Mastropaolo

Cast

Renato Carpentieri, Andrea Renzi, Bianca Maria D'Amato, Edoardo Sorgente, Antonia Marrone, Alfredo Ciruzzi, Giuseppe Festinese, Manuel Carola, Suami Puglia

The event is organised in partnership with the Italian Embassy and the Italian Cultural Institute in London.

Overview

At the start of the 1990-91 Serie A championship, President Mantovani's Sampdoria is ready to aim for the maximum goal. Vialli, Mancini and Vierchowood are more determined than ever to do well, also because of the disappointment suffered in Italy '90. A pact between players will lead to one of the most surprising championships ever.

Director

Marco Ponti

Producers

Matteo Rovere, Leonardo Godano

Cast

Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Mancini, Gianluca Pagliuca, Giulio Nuciari, Luca Pellegrini, Toninho Cerezo, Fausto Pari, Moreno Mannini, Ivano Bonetti, Giovanni Invernizzi, Pietro Vierchowod, Attilio Lombardo, Marco Lanna, Giuseppe Dossena, Narciso Pezzotti 

Overview

Antonio (Antonio Albanese) is a passionate but often out of work actor. To make ends meet, he takes on whatever job may come his way… including teaching a theatre workshop in a prison.

A homage to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Grazie Ragazzi is a comedy on waiting and on learning to wait, and on turning to art to find solace and redemption.

Riccardo Milani (The Soul’s Place, Like a Cat on a Highway) casts a comic eye on Italian prisons and the need for culture and creative outlets for inmates as a means of rehabilitation and self-affirmation.

Starring the comic genius Antonio Albanese (Cetto LaQualunque, Alex Drastico) and award winning actor Fabrizio Bentivoglio.

Director

Riccardo Milani

Producers

Carlo Degli Esposti, Lorenzo Gangarossa, Mario Gianani, Nicola Serra

Cast

Antonio Albanese, Sonia Bergamasco, Giacomo Ferrara, Vinicio Marchioni, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Nicola Rignanese, Andrea Lattanzi, Giorgio Montanini, Liliana Bottone, Bogdan Iordachioiu

Overview

On a September day, the protagonists of the film realise that the life they are living is not the one they dreamed of. The stories of Maria (Margherita Rebeggiani), a reserved teen, Francesca (Barbara Ronchi), a woman with health issues, and Guglielmo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio), a doctor, come together in a quest for happiness and new beginnings.⠀ 

Director

Giulia Steigerwalt

Producers

Matteo Rovere, Enrico Cerabino

Cast

Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Barbara Ronchi, Thony, Andrea Sartoretti, Tesa Litvan, Enrico Borello, Margherita Rebeggiani, Luca Nozzoli, Arianna Ascoli, Michele Enrico Montesano, Alessandro De Simone

Overview

Olimpia is a legend of dance halls. At age 70, she puts her orchestra’s Ducato back on

the road and sets off on a journey towards the people who loved her and the places

that made her a star. For some time, however, she has been forgetting things.

Therefore, she hires Maria, a girl who has yet to emerge from her cocoon, as her driver

and chaperone. Olimpia is excessive and passionate, while Maria is quiet and shy. The

two women will learn to love each other, until Maria realizes that Olympia is asking her

to be much more than a chauffeur. For she has told no one that the journey will be her

last. 

Director

Corrado Ceron

Producers

Nicola Fedrigoni, Valentina Zanella

Cast

Stefania Sandrelli, Silvia D'Amico, Paolo Rossi, Paolo Cioni, Diego Facciotti, Giancarlo Previati, Stefano Bicocchi, Duilio Pizzocchi

Overview

Italy, after the promulgation of the racial laws (1938). Luciano, a Fascist-abiding restaurateur, nonetheless believes he can still live by his own rules inside his business. However, everything changes when Anna, a girl with a dangerous secret, starts to work at his restaurant. 

Director

Giuseppe Piccioni

Producer

Riccardo Scamarcio

Cast

Riccardo Scamarcio, Benedetta Porcaroli, Valeria Bilello, Lino Musella, Sandra Ceccarelli, Vincenzo Nemolato, Antonio Salines. Film curator, critic and head of Screen Arts at NFTS Sandra Hebron will introduce the film. The director Giuseppe Piccioni and main actor Riccardo Scamarcio will attend for a post film discussion/Q&A session.