Italian Cinema @ MoMA

Pictured above:

Laurence Kardish (MoMa) Antonio Monda (NYU), Giampoalo Letta (Medusa Films), Salvatore Ferragamo (Ferragamo), and Mario Sesti (Film Critic)

MoMA has done it again. Another tribute to Italian Cinema has arrived at the Museum of Modern Art. Following the tribute to Antonio Capuano and the tribute to Gianni Amelio, MoMA has hooked up with Medus Films and Salvatore Ferragamo to celebrate Medusa Film’s 10th Anniversary. As I was sitting in at the press conference for this event, I looked on stage and saw Ettore Scola. I turned to my right and saw Dario Argento. I look behind me and saw Paolo Sorrentino. I looked in front of me and saw Stefano Accorsi. It was the who’s who of Italian Cinema yesterday and today.

To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the production and distribution company Medusa, the president of Medusa donated 14 of their most popular titles to the Museum of Modern Art including Gabrielle Muccino’s The Last Kiss, Guisseppe Tornatore’s The Legend of 1900 and Ettore Scola’s La Cena. MoMA’s extensive library film collection dates back to the beginning of Italian cinema with the original prints of Cabria and Quo Vadis – two of Italy’s most elaborate silent film masterpieces.

Medusa has produced 450 films in the past 10 years. They have made dramas, comedies and genre films, and have worked with a wide range of young, established, and foreign directors. Beyond Italian filmmakers they have distributed and funded films by Robert Altman, Pedro Almodovar, and Woody Allen, among many others. They have continued to help the renaissance of Italian cinema.

Here’s a list and times of the films playing in the next couple of weeks.

La cena (The Supper). 1998. Italy. Directed by Ettore Scola. Screenplay by Ettore Scola, Giacomo Scarpelli, Furio Scarpelli, Silvia Scarpelli. With Fanny Ardant, Antonio Catania, Vittorio Gassman. In this comedy of manners set in a restaurant, the camera moves smoothly among the tables, revealing the egos and sexual desires of the diners in a microcosm of Italian society at once hilarious and sharply observant. 126 min.

Wednesday, January 18, 8:00; Saturday, January 21, 6:30. T1

Dopo mezzanotte (After Midnight). 2004. Italy. Directed by Davide Ferrario. Screenplay by Francesca Bocca. With Giorgio Pasotti, Francesca Inaudi, Fabio Troiano. Amanda, a runaway girl, is courted by both an angel and Martino in this gently paced story intercut with scenes from silent films. Amanda doesn’t want to lose either of her lovers, but “for one to be happy, another must be sad.” 89 min.
Thursday, January 19, 8:15; Monday, January 23, 6:00. T1

La lingua del santo (Holy Tongue). 2000. Italy. Directed by Carlo Mazzacurati. Screenplay by Franco Bernini, Umberto Contarello, Carlo Mazzacurati, Marco Pettenello. With Antonio Albanese, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Toni Bettorelli. Antonio and Willie are a pair of losers who steal money and the tongue of Saint Anthony during a holy festival. They repent by restoring the relic but keep the money. 110 min.
Friday, January 20, 6:00; Sunday, January 22, 5:00. T1

Velocità massima (Maximum Speed). 2002. Italy. Directed by Daniele Vicari. Screenplay by Maura Nuccetelli, Laura Paolucci, Daniele Vicari. With Valerio Mastandrea, Cristiano Morroni, Alessia Barela. A melodrama about young men, cars, a beautiful girl, and making ends meet. 107 min.

Friday, January 20, 8:30; Sunday, January 22, 2:00. T1

La fata ignoranti (His Secret Life). 2001. Italy. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Screenplay by Gianni Romoli and Ferzan Ozpetek. With Margherita Buy, Stefano Accorsi. Happily married for over ten years, Antonia and Massimo live in a splendid villa on the outskirts of Rome. One day Massimo dies in a car accident. Antonia cannot recover, shutting herself in her sorrow until she discovers by chance that her husband had a seven-year extramarital affair. Such is the “fata ignoranta,” or secret way, that leads her to the truth. 106 min.
Saturday, January 21, 4:15; Monday, January 30, 8:30. T1

Tre uomini e una gamba (Three Men and a Leg). 1997. Italy. Written and directed by Giovanni and Giacomo Aldo, Massimo Venier. With Giovanni and Giacomo Aldo, Marina Massironi. A comedy about the troubles of a pair of assassins who mistakenly kill the don’s bulldog and don’t know how to tell him. 98 min.
Saturday, January 21, 8:30; Wednesday, January 25, 8:30. T1

Io non ho paura (Not Scared). 2003. Italy. Directed by Gabriele Salvatores. Screenplay by Niccolò Ammaniti, Francesca Marciano. With Aitania Sanchez Gijon, Dino Abbrescia, Diego Abatatuono. Based on Ammaniti’s novel, the story is set in the 1970s in a rural village in southern Italy. In the summer heat, Michele discovers an abandoned house and a hole containing a kidnapped boy his age, who is being held prisoner by Michele’s family. Torn by conflicting emotions, he must decide to free the child or participate in a communal crime. 105 min.
Sunday, January 22, 2:30. T2; Saturday, January 28, 9:00. T1

I Giorni dell’abbandono (The Days of Abandonment). 2005. Italy. Directed by Roberto Faenza. Screenplay by Gianni Arduini, Simona Bellettini, Faenza. With Margherita Buy, Luca Zingaretti, Goran Bregovic. The Days of Abandonment is based on a novel by Elena Ferrante, one of today’s most mysterious and fascinating Italian authors (she has never been seen or met). It recounts the anguish and loss of identity of a woman whose husband has left her. Buy’s extraordinary performance confirms her as one of the finest actresses in contemporary Italian cinema. 96 min.
Sunday, January 22, 5:30; Sunday, January 29, 1:00. T2

L’assedio (Besieged). 1998. Italy. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Screenplay by Bertolucci, Clare Peploe. With Thandie Newton, David Thewlis, Claudio Santamaria. In Bertolucci’s lush and romantic tale, an African woman works for a rather mad English music teacher and composer in Rome. While keeping his house in order she studies his music, and they fall into a fragile love. In English. 89 min.
Monday, January 23, 8:00. T1; Sunday, January 29, 3:00. T2

La leggenda del pianista sull’oceano (The Legend of 1900). 1998. Italy. Written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. With Tim Roth, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Melanie Thierry. A fantasy by the director of Cinema Paradiso (1989). On a ship traveling from Italy to America, a man is hit by an anchor and dies at sea, leaving his son to be raised on an ocean liner named Nineteen Hundred. Danny spends his life at sea, becoming a great piano player and finally challenging Jelly Roll Morton in a musical duel. 165 min.
Wednesday, January 25, 5:30. T1; Saturday, January 28, 2:00. T2

Le consequenze dell’amore (The Consequences of Love). 2004. Italy. Written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino. For eight years, Titta Di Girolamo has lived in an old Swiss hotel. He doesn’t work but instead spends his days in the hotel bar, elegantly dressed and seemingly emotionless, yet with the expectation of the occasional friend. Every day is the same, but what secret is he hiding? 99 min.
Thursday, January 26, 6:00; Sunday, January 29, 5:00. T1

L’ultimo bacio (One Last Kiss). 2001. Italy. Written and directed by Gabriele Muccino. With Stefano Accorsi, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Stefania Sandrelli. In this farce where everyone cheats on everyone else, Anna wants to leave her husband, and her daughter announces at a dinner party that she is having a baby and wants to leave her man too. The protagonists fear to take on responsibilities but decide nevertheless to move ahead with their lives. Needless to say, things don’t quite go as they should… . 115 min.
Thursday, January 26, 8:00; Saturday, January 28, 4:30. T1

Radiofreccia. 1998. Italy. Directed by Luciano Ligabue. Screen-play by Ligabue, Antonio Leotti. With Stefano Accorsi, Luciano Federico, Alessio Modica. In April 24, 1993, Radio “freccia” broadcasts its last program. One of its founders has died, and after eighteen years the station is past its prime. Bruno, another founder, recounts the story of the station, which is also the tale of a group of friends in their youthful years.
115 min.
Friday, January 27, 5:30; Saturday, January 28, 6:45. T1

Non ti muovere (Don’t Move). 2004. Italy. Directed by Sergio Castellitto. Screenplay by Sergio Castellino and Margaret Mazzantini from the novel by Mazzantini. With Penelope Cruz, Castellitto, Claudia Gerini. On a rainy day Angela falls from her motorbike, and, gravely wounded, is taken to the hospital where her father, Timoteo, is a doctor. While a colleague operates, Timoteo engages in an imaginary conversation with his daughter, telling her of a secret too long hidden. He speaks of a past love that flourished years earlier between him and a young girl, Italia… . 117 min.

Friday, January 27, 8:30. T2; Sunday, January 29, 2:00. T1