Di Costanzo’s documentary background is strongly felt in his evocative depiction of the prison’s inner workings, among its staff as well as those who are imprisoned there. Toni Servillo stars as the guards’ captain, while the inmates have their own equivalent figure in the form of an influential mobster (Orlando). Winner of the 2022 David di Donatello Awards for Best Original Screenplay with Silvio Orlando taking Best Actor, Leonardo Di Costanzo’s atmospheric third fiction feature is a group character study set within a mostly abandoned prison, in which a handful of guards watch over a smattering of inmates as they await a constantly deferred transfer to another prison. Leonardo Di Costanzo, Italy/Switzerland, 2021, 117m Saturday, June 11 at 2:45pm (Q&A with Giuseppe Bonito) Surrounded by strangers in a smaller, shabbier house than that of her wealthier adoptive parents, she must grapple with a new life in a new daily environment, as well as the feelings of abandonment brought on by her reunion with the family she never knew. An adopted 13-year-old girl arrives at a farmstead, having been sent against her will to live with her biological family, whom she has never met before. Sunday, June 12 at 5:30pm (Q&A with Bonifacio Angius)Īdapted from a 2017 best-selling novel by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, Giuseppe Bonito’s third feature (winner of the 2022 David di Donatello Award for Best Adapted Screenplay) is an entrancing and emotionally precise meditation on childhood and family set in the summer of 1975. But we soon learn that one of them has a gun, and the proceedings grow increasingly surreal as Angius steers this provocative chamber piece to its inexorable yet nevertheless surprising conclusion. These men set about enacting a Dionysian last hurrah-drinking, taking drugs, recounting their shared past, philosophically discoursing upon the state of the world and of mankind, and inadvertently revealing their own social (and maybe sexual) impotence. Saturday, June 11 at 5:30pm (Q&A with Francesco Costabile)Ī sui generis and darkly funny portrait of masculinity on the brink, Bonifacio Angius’s latest feature-which he directed, wrote, shot, edited, performed in, and produced-centers on a gathering of old friends at a decrepit countryside villa. An enthralling portrait both of courage and resistance in the face of shadowy, oppressive forces, and of Calabria itself. Now an adult, Rosa grows increasingly curious about the true circumstances of that mysterious event, and seeks to uncover the truth-an act of excavation that leads her to ever-more-concerning epiphanies about the dynamics within her family and its possible ties to the ’Ndrangheta, a notorious Calabrian crime syndicate. Rosa (Lina Siciliano) has spent all her life in a small Calabrian village, raised there by her grandmother after her mother’s death when she was a child. Thursday, June 9 at 7:00pm (Q&A with Gabriele Mainetti)Ī woman attempts to reconcile the mysteries of her past with the dangers of her present in Francesco Costabile’s gripping and personal solo feature debut (from a story co-written by Open Roads veteran Edoardo De Angelis). Winner of six 2022 David di Donatello Awards. How will they save themselves? Suffice it to say, Mainetti teases out the endgame with a wealth of imagination, boldness, and dazzling imagery.
Believing that the freaks’ abilities, which resemble superpowers, are key to prolonging the Führer’s life, he captures and tortures our heroes in the hopes of harnessing them as weapons.
Set in 1943, the film follows the “freaks” of the Circus Mezzapiotta (whose proprietor, Israel, is Jewish), as some of them are duped into taking jobs at the Berlin Zircus in Nazi-occupied Rome, run by a deranged 12-fingered pianist (Franz Rogowski) who has had a prophetic vision of Hitler’s eventual suicide. Offering a wild ride to say the least, Gabriele Mainetti (whose previous feature, They Call Me Jeeg, made waves at Open Roads in 2016) returns with an epic period fantasy that must be seen to be believed. Gabriele Mainetti, Italy/Belgium, 2021, 141m For the schedule and to order tickets go to the FLC site HERE. Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, 2022 editionįESTIVAL COVERAGE THREAD (FILMLEAF REVIEWS)įilm at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà announce the complete lineup for the 21st edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, running from June 9 to 15Īll 14 films are in Italian with English subtitles unless otherwise noted, and are shown by Film at Lincoln Center in coordination with Cinecittà at the Walter Reade Theater (165 W.