VENICE 2024: Vittoria (2024)
★★★☆☆
Vittoria is an extraordinary, moving drama based on real events about a woman’s need to adopt a child, directed by Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman.
Italy
Io Capitano (2023)
★★★★☆
Io Capitano directed by Matteo Garrone is an empathetic, award-winning migrant story.
Berlinale 2024: My Summer with Irène (2024) (Quell’estate con Irène)
★★★★☆
My Summer with Irène, directed by Carlo Sironi, is a beautiful summer elegy by the sea for two girls together.
Padre Pio (2022)
★★★★☆
Abel Ferrara’s Padre Pio links religious fervour, the growth of fascism and socialism, and the Ukraine invasion, and is based on true events culminating on 14 October 1920.
The Eight Mountains (2022) (Le Otto Montagne)
★★☆☆☆
Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains, which they adapted from Paolo Cognetti’s novel Le Otto Montagne, tells the story of the friendship of Pietro and Bruno from boys to men in their 30s from the perspective of Pietro.
EO (2022)
span style=”color:#D1A316″>★★★★☆
EO, veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski’s compelling, beautifully shot homage to Bresson’s classic, takes a donkey’s eye view of the vagaries of life.
Cannes Film Festival 2021 Day 7: Tre Piani (Three Floors) (2021)
★★☆☆☆
Cannes Film Festival 2021 Day 7: Three Floors (Tre Piani) by Nanni Moretti – what the critics say.
The Man with the Answers (2020)
★★★☆☆
A burgeoning connection with a stranger may deeply affect the life of an ex-diving champion in writer/director Stelios Kammitsis’s charming but slight The Man with the Answers.
Notturno (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Filmed over three years in war zones in Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon, Notturno (Nocturne) by Gianfranco Rosi is a documentary oddity.
Waiting for the Barbarians (2019) – Digital download
★★★☆☆
Waiting for the Barbarians by acclaimed director Ciro Guerra is a beautiful, well-acted, slow-moving allegory of imperialism.
Pinocchio (2020)
★★★★☆
Matteo Garrone’s surreal live-action fantasy takes the Italian classic Pinocchio disturbingly back to its original dark roots.
Happy as Lazzaro (2018) (Lazzaro felice)
★★★★☆
Happy as Lazzaro by Alice Rohrwacher is a magical-realist fable that features types of exploitation.
Redoubtable (2017)
★★★☆☆
In a timely release for the anniversary of the May 1968 almost-revolution in Paris, Michel Hazanavicius wickedly funny re-invention of Jean-Luc Godard in Redoubtable, as seen though the eyes of Anne Wiazemsky, his second wife.
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
★★★★☆
A delightfully nostalgic and evocative portrait of young love, Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name has all of the pleasure and only some of the pain.