Open Roads: New Italian Cinema

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema is an annual film festival hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and includes one of the most comprehensive collections of Italian cinema available to movie goers. This year's festival was held at its usual venue, the Walter Reade Theater in New York City June 6 - 12 and included a line up second to none.

Among the highlights of Open Roads every year are the Q & A sessions with the filmmakers that are open to the public. This year's special guests included actress Jasmine Trinca along with directors Gianni Zanasi, Silvio Soldini, Ferzan Ozpetek, Andrea Porporati and Salvatore Maira. The Q & A sessions offer a rare opportunity to talk with your favorite filmmakers about their work and to get a glimpse into their personalities. The filmmakers are always forthcoming and patient in answering the audience's questions, and the moderators make sure to get all of the questions answered.

Art Imitates Life

The theme of many films in the festival this year was relationships and family. Families watching television together come across images of war and comment on the crisis and shallowness of society. "War and advertisements are all that's on TV," said one character. The perspective of children and young people is also a common theme this year as is 30-, 40- and 50-somethings coming to terms with the choices they made in life. Art does imitate life and it seems that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the suffering that we constantly see when we turn on the news is affecting the way people are judging themselves and their morality. This was most evident in Appuntamento a ora insolita (An Unusual Time To Meet). It's been described as a contemporary take on The Big Chill, and was made by respected cinematographer Stefano Coletta. His direction and melancholic style of shooting follow a group of friends all in their late 40's and early 50's who look back on the dreams and radical changes that faced their generation when they were growing up and how they abandoned those dreams and the talk of change eventually faded away.

Ferzan Ozpetek's latest film, Saturno contro (Saturn in Opposition) was included in the program, and it's one of his best yet. The film was a commercial hit in Italy last year and includes an all-star cast of Italy's hottest stars with Stefano Acorsi, Margherita Buy and Pierfrancesco Favino, just to name a few. Again, the story focuses on 30- and 40-somethings trying to make sense of their lives and choices. There are so many ways to tell this story and indeed it's a story that has been told, but Ferzan Ozpetek handles this material and his ensemble cast the way a composer would handle a symphony or an artist a paintbrush. Just as he's done in his previous films, he paints a detailed, colorful portrait of contemporary Italian life and explores new areas that go on to influence new directors following in his footsteps. He is certainly one of the finest directors of our generation and his commercial success in Italy has made all of his films easily available over the internet and in many video and dvd stores throughout the world.

Open Roads Goes Green

In addition to the film program, Open Roads played host to the New York premiere of Franco Piavoli's Blue Planet. The screening marked the film's 25th anniversary in a One-Night-Only showing. The film has been described as "poem, concert, journey into the universe, nature and life". It's an experimental film built on rhythms that present the harmony and the contrasts between human activity and the physical world. This is yet one more example of art imitating life and the fact that this film was made 25 years ago shows how every generation faces similar issues. This film is a celebration of the earth and reinforces the importance of preserving it.

The Film Society's year-round Green Screens environmental film program joined forces with Open Roads for a screening of Biùtiful Cauntri. The film, whose title is a play on English, takes on the unsolved problem of waste disposal in Naples, Italy. "We ask ourselves how, in 2007, people can still live this way here in Italy," say the filmmakers. "The problem of waste disposal involves wide-ranging and complex mechanisms that touch politics, the economy, organized crime and public health." The film was difficult to watch as it showed us a side of Italy that we rarely see. The filmmakers' passion and concern for the health and safety of their homeland led them to a thorough documentary on a true environmental tragedy.

For more information on Open Roads and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, check them out online at www.filmlinc.org.

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