The 2012 Italian Film Festival marks the event’s 13th anniversary. Year after year the cream of Italy’s cinema crop is rounded up and presented to film lovers throughout the nation. It’s one of my personal favourites, up there with the French Film Festival and the Brisbane International Film Festival (which is also fast approaching!)
This year Woody Allen fans will be enthralled to find on offer To Rome with Love, the director’s love letter to Italy. The film weaves together a number of different stories in classic Woody Allen style; that of a worker who wakes up to find himself a celebrity; an architect who travels home to the street he lived on while he was studying; a young couple on their honeymoon; and a frustrated opera director who has a gift for discovering new talent.
Also on offer is Welcome to the North, the sequel to last year’s smash hit, Welcome to the South, a quirky Italian comedy about Mattia, a young man who, in order to win back the love of his life, moves to the north of Italy to prove that he can make something out of himself. Welcome to the North is a light and endearing comedy, admittedly with a few misguided twists and turns, but altogether quite enjoyable. I especially appreciated its poking fun at the lives of busy and important people and the unexpected big brother overtones.
The closing night film is the hilarious comedy A Flat for Three, starring Italy’s sweetheart Carlo Verdone as one of three divorced men who decide to share a flat together. Each of the men have very different personalities and boundaries and as you can imagine, living in close quarters together brings out both the best and the worst in them.
Horror fans rejoice! This year there will be an exciting retrospective of Italian horror master Lucio Fulci. Porte Dell’Inferno will be a collection of three Fulci horror masterpieces made during the early 80s: City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, and The House by the Cemetery. So stop in and catch a film or three by “the godfather of gore” Lucio Fulci.
That is just a snippet of the fantastic films on offer this year at the 2012 Italian Film Festival. It’s truly an exciting line up this year and with two fantastic venues – Palace Barracks and Palace Centro – there is nothing stopping this being one of the best years yet.
