Films

July 10: The Way We Laughed (1998)
Director: Gianni Amelio Actors: Francesco Giuffrida, Enrico Lo Verso, Rosaria Danzè, Fabrizio Gifuni, Claudio Contartese Winner of the prestigious Golden Lion award at the 1998 Venice Film Festival, The Way We Laughed is another richly layered drama from Gianni Amelio, the acclaimed director of the multiple-award-winning 1995 arthouse hit Lamerica. A tragic tale of brotherhood, Amelio's ambitiously structured film spans six years (1958-64) in the lives of an illiterate Sicilian named Giovanni (Enrico Lo Verso, from Lamerica) and his younger, enigmatic brother Pietro (Francesco Guiffrida) as they seek a new life in the class-divided city of Turin. Divided into six novel-like chapters that cover one pivotal day in each passing year, this emotionally resonant drama reveals how the gradually successful Giovanni desperately wants Pietro to achieve respectability as a schoolteacher.

July 24: La Scorta (1994)
Director: Ricky Tognazzi Actors: Claudio Amendola, Carlo Cecchi, Ugo Conti, Leo Gullotta, Angelo Infanti Winner Of Five Italian Oscars Including Best Director. Claudio Amendola (in his breakout performance) and Enrico Lo Verso star in this white-knuckle thriller from writer/director Ricky Tognazzi featuring a pounding score by Ennio Morricone and based on a true story of uncommon courage. Sicily, 1992: When a high-profile judge and his bodyguard are brutally murdered, four reluctant young cops are assigned as 'La Scorta' - Italian for 'the escorts' - to protect the replacement prosecutor from Mafia assassins. But in a country where high level corruption and sudden violence are a way of life, the squad quickly find themselves outnumbered, outgunned and desperately out of time. Even if they can survive the daily threat of car bombs and ambushes, will personal conflicts and backroom betrayals blow apart the nation's most unlikely team of heroes?

August 7: Incantato (2003)
There are so many reasons why this prize-winner is a great film. The hero of the story is a 35-year-old man who is attracted to women but extremely shy of them. His father (Giancarlo Gianini) , the tailor to the Catholic Pope, is very sexual so he cannot understand what the problem is with his son. Nevertheless, he directs him to go to Bologna in the 1920's where the man teaches Greek and Latin to students preparing for university. At a chance encounter, he discovers a beautiful woman without sight who enchants him. He falls in love at first glance. Directed by Pupi Avati.

August 21: My Brother is an Only Child (2008)
This black comedy from talented director Daniele Luchetti (Little Teachers, The Yes Man), digs deep in its examination of family, connections, and brotherly love. It manages to be touching, edgy, hilarious, disturbing and vexing--sometimes all in the same scene. At the heart of My Brother are two of Italy's hottest young screen stars, Elio Germano, who plays younger brother Accio, and heartthrob Riccardo Scamarcio, who plays older brother Manrico, both wrestling with the political changes sweeping their country in the '60s. Their fractious but loving family is completed by their compassionate dad, fretful mother, and sweet sister, who spends most of the film dodging the blows, literal and figurative, between her two brothers.

Spend your Saturday evenings at the Institute's movie series: Four Italian Stories!

Film Series - $60. Or you can buy a "Ten Pix Tix" set for $150 that can be used for any 10 films, any time (no expiration date).

Doors open 6PM. Film at 7PM.

Call the office to register: (408) 864-4060, M-F 10AM- 6PM.