Outsider ventures into Italian ‘Unknown’

I might not have understood my passion for cinema with Segio Leone westerns or the world of Star Wars, but Cinema Paradiso told me what I had known for years – ti amo cinema. It's nice to see that Giuseppe Tornatore is still very much in the game – his The Unknown (La Sconosciuta) has just received a foreign film Oscar birth for Italy (edging out the very popular My Brother Is an Only Child) and in the same measure has been picked up by West Coast indie distributor Outsider Pictures for a probably 08 release.

A sprawling Italian city of our times. The “unknown woman” is Irena. She had come to Italy many years before from the Ukraine, and today lives amidst ghosts of the past and a search for the present: two planes of time that interweave, superimpose, and make up an intriguing puzzle, a taut high-tension narrative. Who is Irena truly?

The pic won 5 David di Donatello awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Music and Best Cinematography.