The 2012 edition of the Cinema Italian Style festival will take place November 13-18, 2012.
The six-day celebration of Italian cinema will be held at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, and at the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, and showcase classic Italian films and contemporary productions, including several U.S. premieres.
Tuesday November 13 – 7:30 PM
Pre-opening dedicated to Carlo Ponti
EGYPTIAN THEATRE
TWO WOMEN (LA CIOCIARA), 1960, Surf Film, 100 min. Dir. Vittorio De Sica. Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Oscar® for Best Actress – the first ever awarded for a non-English-language performance won by Sophia Loren. In this movie, she delivers a career-defining performance as a mother struggling to protect her daughter on a journey through war-ravaged Italy. This Italian gem – superbly crafted by neorealist master De Sica – is a devastating and at times shocking portrait of a family on a quest to escape bomb-battered World War II Rome. Jean-Paul Belmondo co-stars as Loren’s young, intellectual love interest. In Italian with English subtitles.
Wednesday, November 14 – 7:00 PM
Opening Night
EGYPTIAN THEATRE
CAESAR MUST DIE (CESARE DEVE MORIRE), 2012, Adopt Films, 76 min. Italy’s Official Entry Best Foreign Language Film 2013 Academy Award. Already winner of the top prize at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s gritty look at Rome’s maximum-security Rebibbia prison through the lens of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” is hard-hitting docudrama at its finest. Real-life inmates of the penitentiary participate in an emotion-fueled audition process, and then perform lines from the classic play while behind bars, donning what bare-bones costumes they can find and enacting the timeless tale of betrayal and downfall in a recontextualized light that is at once pertinent, gripping and eye-opening. Official selection of the 2012 New York Film Festival. In Italian with English subtitles. The evening begins at 7:00 PM with the Cinema Italian Style opening ceremony. Feature film will start at 7:30 PM. Discussion following with directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. 
Thursday, November 15 – 7:30 PM
AERO THEATRE
Double Feature:
STEEL (ACCIAIO), US Premiere! – 2012, Films Distribution, 95 min. Up-and-coming Italian actor Michele Riondino stars as Alessio, who works in the local steel plant of seaside city Piombino and still pines for his ex-lover (Vittoria Puccini), despite her giving him humiliating special treatment when a sweep of layovers besets the company. Meanwhile, Alessio’s teenager sister, Anna (Matilde Giannini), is on the cusp of adulthood, looking ahead to a bleak future of scant job opportunities in the wake of Italy’s economic crisis. Stefano Mordini’s elegant, clear-eyed portrait of working-class life in a time of recession and extreme financial uncertainty was an official selection of the Venice Days program at the 2012 Venice International Film Festival. In Italian with English subtitles.
IL ROSSO E IL BLU, Los Angeles Premiere – 2012, Teodora Film, 98 min. Giuseppe Piccioni’s sharp institutional satire of a Roman public high school focuses on the clash between two teachers on opposite ends of the spectrum: the idealistic, hard-headed young Prezioso (Riccardo Scamarcio), who believes he can change his students BLACKBOARD JUNGLE-style, and the grouchy misanthrope Fiorito (Roberto Herlitzka), convinced of the world’s unalterable stupidity. Add strict and goofily hypocritical principal Giuliana (Margherita Buy) into the mix and you’ve got an honest, bittersweet comedy of (educational) errors. In Italian with English subtitles. Discussion between films with actor Michele Riondino (ACCIAIO).
Friday, November 16 – 7:30 PM
AERO THEATRE
Double Feature:
KRYPTONITE! (LA KRYPTONITE NELLA BORSA), Los Angeles Premiere! – 2011, Rai Trade, 98 min. Screenwriter Ivan Cotroneo (I AM LOVE) makes his directing debut with this vividly colorful depiction of a grandiose Neapolitan family in the tumultuous and politically radical 1970s. Nine-year-old Peppino (Luigi Catani) narrates the ups and downs of his blue-collar family, centered on the boy’s philandering father (Luca Zingaretti), while his older siblings experiment with bra burning, hallucinogens and lesbian love-ins, even in the wake of his mother (Valeria Golino) sinking into debilitating depression. With Cristiana Capotondi and Libero De Rienzo. Winner for Best Movie and Best Actress (Golino) at the Annecy Film Festival. Nominated for Best Comedy Award at Nastri d’Argento by the Italian film critics union (S.N.G.C.I.). In Italian with English subtitles.
ONE DAY MORE (IL GIORNO IN PIU), Los Angeles Premiere! – 2011, Rai Trade, 111 min. Based on the novel by actor Fabio Volo (here in the lead role), director Massimo Venier’s winning nod to classic American romantic comedies follows 30-something manchild Giacomo (Volo), freshly dumped by his exasperated girlfriend. In order to dodge the unwanted advances of his boss’ daughter, Giacomo invents an imaginary relationship based on an eye-contact flirtation with a young woman he sees daily on the street car, calling her Agnese. When “Agnese” actually speaks to him one morning, revealing herself to be Michela, moving to New York the following day, Giacomo finds himself in quite a predicament. He convinces Michela to spend four days in Gotham with him, but will the love affair last after the trip is over? An official selection of the Turin Film Festival. In Italian with English subtitles. Discussion between films with director Ivan Cotroneo (KRYPTONITE), actress Cristiana Capotondi (KRYPTONITE)
Saturday, November 17 – 5:00 PM
AERO THEATRE
DIAZ: DON’T CLEAN UP THIS BLOOD (DIAZ), Los Angeles Premiere! – 2012, Fandango Portobello, 120 min. When a slew of hardboiled cops raid the Diaz school, looking for a ring of international anarchist thugs but finding hundreds of mostly peaceful protestors sleeping, the police brutality reaches a fever pitch. Based on real events in Genoa in 2001, Daniele Vicari’s hard-hitting procedural exposé stars Claudio Santamaria as Max, one of the film’s few good cops, Elio Germano as an unlucky journalist, Jennifer Ulrich as a German demonstrator submitted to particularly heinous police treatment, and Davide Iacopini as the organizer of the G8 Summit. An official selection at the 2012 Berlin and Karlovy Vary international film festivals. In Italian with English subtitles.
Saturday, November 17 – 7:30 PM
AERO THEATRE
Double Feature:
THE ENTREPRENEUR (L’INDUSTRIALE), Los Angeles Premiere! – 2011, Rai Trade, 94 min. Factory owner Nicola (Pierfrancesco Favino) is too proud to ask his uber-wealthy wife Laura (Italian star Carolina Crescentini), or his mother-in-law (Elisabetta Piccolomini) to help refinance his direly wanting company, but his stubbornness and secrecy begin to strain his marriage. When Laura becomes friendly with a local garage attendant (Eduard Gabia), Nicola worries he’ll be made a cuckold if he can’t solve his financial woes soon. Enter unscrupulous lawyer Ferrero (Francesco Scianna), whose questionably legal methods only dig Nicola’s problems gravely deeper. Giuliano Montaldo’s cool gray portrayal of an atrophying, wintry Turin, and the 1% upper classes struggling to maintain its security in the face of a crumbling kingdom, won Best Film at the Golden Globes Italy, and received the 2011 Rome Film Festival’s L.A.R.A. award for Scianna’s supporting performance. In Italian with English subtitles.
MAGNIFICA PRESENZA, Los Angeles Premiere! – 2012, Fandango Portobello, 105 min. In Ferzan Ozpetek’s charmingly strange comedic drama, Elio Germano stars as Pietro, a 20-something gay pastry chef and would-be actor who happens to live with a former theater troupe of dramatic, hand-wringing ghosts (led by Giuseppe Fiorello and Margherita Buy) in his new apartment in Rome. As Pietro tries to co-exist with his Grand Guignol roommates, he learns of their unsettling history, which came to a blunt, mysterious end in 1943. Meanwhile, the spooks help him with his love life. With Vittoria Puccini. Winner of the Best Director , Best Actor (Elio Germano) Best Supporting Actress (Paola Minaccioni), Best supporting actor (Beppe Fiorello) awards at the 2012 Golden Globes Italy. Winner of the Nastro d’Argento by the Italian film critics union (S.N.G.C.I.). In Italian with English subtitles. Discussion between films with actress Carolina Crescentini (The entrepreneur) and actor Andrea Bosca (Magnifica presenza)
Sunday, November 18 – 5:00 PM
AERO THEATRE
THE BIG HEART OF GIRLS (IL CUORE GRANDE DELLE RAGAZZE), Los Angeles Premiere! – 2011, Filmexport Group, 85 min. In Pupi Avati’s wonder-filled trip down memory lane, Alessandro Haber narrates in voiceover his 1930s upbringing with the older brother he ardently admired, playboy Carlino (Cesare Cremonini). When Carlino falls for Francesca (Micaela Ramazzotti), a pairing that’s met with intense familial objections on both sides, he woos her into marriage but is soon back to his philandering ways when tempted by a former lover (Isabelle Adriani). A pillow-fluffy and candy-sweet romp through 
complications of the heart (and other body parts), this romantic dramedy is as charming and irresistible as Carlino himself. An official selection of the 2011 Rome Film Festival, Ramazzotti was awarded the Best Actress Nastro d’Argento by the Italian film critics union (S.N.G.C.I.). In Italian with English subtitles.
Sunday, November 18 – 7:30 PM
AERO THEATRE
A FLAT FOR THREE (POSTI IN PIEDI IN PARADISO), Los Angeles Premiere! – 2012, Intra Movies,119 min. Carlo Verdone’s sharp, merciless comedy centers on divorced buddies Ulisse, Fulvio and Domenico (Carlo Verdone, Pierfrancesco Favino and Marco Giallini) who make the dubious decision to move in together to help their financial woes. But sharing a tiny apartment in Rome proves ridiculously problematic as their personalities clash, and ex-wives, young and grown-up children and frisky new sex partners drop in and out at the most inconvenient times. For his supporting turn, Favino won the Special Jury Award at the 2012 Golden Globes Italy, and the film was awarded Best Comedy by the Italian film critics union (S.N.G.C.I.).
THE FIRST ON THE LIST (I PRIMI DELLA LISTA), Los Angeles Premiere! – 2011, Intramovies, 85 min. Set in political turmoil-roiled 1970s Italy, leftist students Renzo (Francesco Turbanti), Fabio (Paolo Cioni) and Pino (Claudio Santamaria) convince themselves that a military coup is near and preemptively flee across the Austrian border, a bumbling move that lands them in jail. Roan Johnson’s paranoid comedy perfectly captures the heightened tension of the times, while deftly combining a light, even delightful tone of young, hilariously misguided idealism. Turbanti received a L.A.R.A. Award Special Mention at the 2011 Rome Film Festival. In Italian with English subtitles.
CINEMA ITALIAN STYLE 2012 is co-presented with Luce Cinecittà. Supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture-Film Department and the Italian Trade Commission, Los Angeles with Pinko, Alberto Moretti, Baci Perugina, Rossano Ferretti. In collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute, Los Angeles and the participation of E.L.M.A. (European Languages and Movies in America). Under the auspices of the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles.