The Sicilian girl: a movie about a searing drama and true event

August 4, 2010 1:00 pm

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August 17, 2010 11:30 pm

The U.S. theatrical premiere of Marco Amenta’s THE SICILIAN GIRL, begins on Wednesday, August 4. The film is based on the true story of Rita Atria, a 17-year-old Sicilian whose father and brother were both Mafia members (and victims), who breaks the vow of silence – omerta – that enshrouds her world. In 1991, during a period when the Mafia was under increasing pressure from the Italian judicial system, Rita gives evidence to famed anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino. Drawing upon the young woman’s extensive diaries, Marco Amenta tells her story, beginning in Sicily in 1985 when, as a small child, she experienced her beloved father as a respected member of the community – a man to whom neighbors would turn for help when a rapacious landlord orders their eviction. Soon after, he’s shot dead in the sun-drenched village square as his daughter looks on. Six years later, her brother is murdered. In court, Rita’s words are denounced as “the ravings of a fanatical adolescent bent on revenge.” But are they? Amenta underlines the extraordinary courage of his protagonist by including a documentary glimpse of the real-life Rita during the film’s final moments.

Trailer with English subtitles

THE SICILIAN GIRL will have a 2-week engagement, August 4-17, at Film Forum, West Houston Street (W. of 6th Avenue), with screenings daily at 1:00, 3:15, 5:30, 7:45, 10:00.

Filmmaker Marco Amenta has made several documentaries about the Sicilian Mafia, including one on Rita Atria’s story, ONE GIRL AGAINST THE MAFIA: DIARY OF A SICILIAN REBEL, which had its U.S. theatrical premiere at Film Forum in 2002, and THE GHOST OF CORLEONE (2006), about the manhunt for Bernardo Provenzano, the capo di tutti capi (boss of all bosses).

An enlightening factual and atmospheric account of large-scale corruption and individual courage. – Sunday Times (Australia)

Highly recommended. Engrossing. As entertaining as any Hollywood thriller.” – The Dominion Post (New Zealand)

THE SICILIAN GIRL (2008, 110 mins.) Directed by Marco Amenta. Produced by Raphael Berdugo, Tilde Corsi, Gianni Romoli, Simonetta Amenta, Marco Amenta. Written by Marco Amenta & Sergio Donati. Director of Photography: Luca Bigazzi. Editor: Mirco Garrone. Cast: Veronica D’Agostino (Rita), Gérard Jugnot (the Judge), Miriana Faja (young Rita), Marcello Mazzarella (Don Michele), Mario Pupella (Don Salvo). Italy/France. In Italian with English subtitles. A Music Box Films release.

Film Forum

The Leopard and Martin Scorsese in Cannes

Martin Scorsese has made a habit of bringing his favorite older movies to Cannes, last year with 1948′s The Red Shoes, this year with the Burt Lancaster period drama The Leopard, which won the festival’s Palme d’Or in 1963.

Directed by Luchino Visconti, it’s a story set in 1860s Sicily amid the unification of the previously divided states of Italy. Lancaster plays a popular, aging aristocrat, Don Fabrizio Corbera,who sees the need for change, but laments the passing of his era. Two young lovers, (Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon), inspire him to welcome the changes. They also remind him painfully of his lost youth.

It’ s a character study — a long one. This was the 3 hour 5 minute Italian version, restored beautifully. The work was sponsored by Gucci and overseen by Scorsese’s preservation group The Film Foundation, and is remarkably beautiful. Brilliant on the big screen.

There are extended, immersive scenes of wealth and decadence, including a final third set at a lavish ball that, while impressive in its scale and attention to detail, though the narrative momentum is glacial. This is not a movie of suspense or intensity. It’s about stories, and conversations, a meditation on one man looking back at a life, hoping it was well lived, and wondering what will become of the those who depend on him when he is gone.

The Leopard requires patience, and arguably could be more emotionally effective at a shorter length, but still contains great performances by all three leads.

Scorsese introduced it at the Debussy Theater as ” one of the greatest film’s I’ve ever seen, and it’s a film I live by. Every day, it’s a part of my life.”

Source: www.usatoday.com

Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy at Open Roads

June 6, 2010
3:30 pm	to	5:30 pm
September 14, 2010
6:30 pm	to	8:30 pm

Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy  will be shown at the Walter Reade Theater at the Lincoln Center  during the “Open Roads”: New Italian Cinema series this year.

Actor John Turturro visits his ancestors’ Sicily, taking the audience on a personal tour of traditions, his family’s origins and even the local pastries. But the real object of his journey is to research a prospective film set in the world of the island’s unique puppet theater, represented by one of its last practitioners, Mimmo Cuticchio, who teaches Turturro some of the techniques of his art. A moving and revealing portrait of a Sicily little known to outsiders, and shot during preparations for the Sicilian Day of the Dead, the film develops into a reflection on the relationship between death and theatricality, reinforced through a series of encounters with contemporary Sicilians, including the author Andrea Camilleri and prince Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi di Lampedusa.

Walter Reade Theater at the Lincoln Center
165 West 65th Street
New York, NY 10023
Phone: (212) 875-5610

Baaria at the Lincoln Center

June 7, 2010
8:00 pm	to	11:00 pm

Baaria can be finally watched at the Walter Reade Theater at the Lincoln Center in New York Monday June 7 at 8PM.
This is the only showing of the film Baaria during the “Open Roads”: New Italian Cinema series this year.

After La Sconosciuta (The Unknown Woman) Giuseppe Tornatore, the Oscar-winning director of Cinema Paradiso, returns to Open Roads with his most personal film, set in his hometown Bagheria, just outside of Palermo. This Sicilian saga spans several decades with a multitude of characters, and involves politics, sex, poverty, dreams, and, of course, cinema. With newcomers Francesco Scianna and Margareth Madè, who recently played the role of Sophia Loren in a TV movie. The film, in which the dialogue is mostly in Sicilian dialect, premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month last year.

Walter Reade Theater @ Lincoln Center
65th St Transverse
New York, 10023
Phone: (212) 875-5600

The 56th Taormina Film Festival

June 12, 2010 9:00 am

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June 18, 2010 6:00 pm

The Taormina Film Fest, celebrates its 56th year from June 12 to 18, 2010, against the stunning backdrop of the Teatro Antico of Taormina, one of Sicily’s most important and well-preserved monuments.

The festival is a major showcase for film premières from Hollywood and around the world. Each year the festival presents a careful selection of just 21 new features, chosen from the most significant recent production. A number of the films first screened in Taormina have been subsequently chosen to represent their countries as Oscar © candidates; others have gone on to win Emmys, Golden Globes and other major awards for their directors, producers, actors and actresses.

Prizes include the Golden Tauro for best film and the renowned Taormina Arte Awards given to outstanding members of the film community.

The Taormina Film Festival is directed by Deborah Young, the Hollywood Reporter’s chief international film critic. The festival, made famous by world-renowned guests from Elizabeth Taylor to Tom Cruise, Lana Turner to Quentin Tarantino to name a few, represents a special meeting point for the cinema, filmmakers and producers of the Mediterranean.

Each year it turns the spotlight on a different Mediterranean country whose current production is of particular interest.

Watch last year’s videos

A Sicilian director to watch: Luca Guadagnino

[...] Born in Palermo, Sicily, to an Algerian mother and a Sicilian father, Guadagnino grew up in Ethiopia and in the Sicilian capital before moving to Rome where his self-taught filmmaking training consisted of what he calls the Rainer Fassbinder film school: watching three movies a day and devouring books about film.

Meanwhile, after becoming “obsessed” with Swinton, first seen in Derek Jarman’s “Caravaggio” (1986), he approached the actress about shooting a short. It never got made, but they struck up a friendship that blossomed into a creative partnership.

More at Variety.com

Sicilian cinema lands in Brazil

Sicilian cinema lands in Brazil thanks to collaboration set up in June 2009 between the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily and the Italian-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce. This will give way to a project full of cultural events which will have great media coverage for a month in the three most suggestive Brazilian cities: Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and Ribeirao Preto. “The Taormina Film Fest in Sicily wants to greatly support the Sicilian cinema, which is going through a happy and important period for its future”, said artistic director, Deborah Young. “The Festival, together with the Sicily Region and the Province of Messina, strongly supports the nomination of Ba’aria for the Oscar and offers all of its support to producers in Sicily who want to make new films that can be exported abroad”. Thanks to the work of the Artistic Direction of the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily, Sicily will be the special guest in Brazil of the fifth Italian Cinema Pirelli Week from November 25th to December 23rd.

Source Adnkronos.com