The fall film festival season is in full swing with the Filipino and Italian film festivals overlapping this weekend. If you love movies then you'll have some tough choices waiting for you in cinemas.
The San Diego Italian Film Festival (SDIFF) opens Oct. 3 with "Rapito," a drama based on true events.
"It's an incredible real story based in Italy in 1858," explained Antonio Iannotta, artistic director of SDIFF. "This little boy, born in a Jewish-Italian family in Bologna, gets kidnapped by the Pope because somebody baptized him secretly. And this is a scandal all over Europe, because the Jewish community all over Italy and all over Europe try to convince the Pope to give back this little kid. And so this is an incredible movie by an incredible director, Marco Bellocchio. And it's a movie about identity, about religion, and aggression and violence of this powerful organization, the Vatican, that really made a statement in saying, we need to protect all people that are baptized. But for this little kid, he lost his family. It's a real story, a beautiful, powerful movie about these themes."
And speaking of themes, each year SDIFF picks a theme to drive its programming.
"The theme this year is core, because we're going to talk about our core values, like identity, but also core issues in Italy today, like immigration," Iannotta explained. "But also, it's a nice play on words, because 'cuore,' in Southern Italian languages, dialects, means 'heart.' So we're really going to talk about the things that are so important in our heart. And as usual, these issues are also very important for our community here in San Diego."
An issue that is close to the festival's heart is diversity, which is reflected in the heartbreaking and stunningly beautiful 2023 film, "Io Capitano" (screening Oct. 5).
"Italy has been a diverse, multiethnic and multiracial country for many, many, many years," Iannotta said. "And still we have this fantasy of a country, totally white, totally Catholic, but it's not like that anymore. And this movie that is such a powerful story tells a story of migration from the perspective of the migrants. So it tells a story of these two cousins coming from Senegal, going through the whole African continent, and finally trying to make it to Italy."
Another standout film from 2023 is "La Chimera" (screening Oct. 10) directed by Alice Rohrwacher and following a rag tag group of tomb raiders led by an archeologist who is not quite Indiana Jones. It's a magical, delightful film.
A different kind of diversity is explored in the documentary "Kripton" (screening Oct. 6) about young people coping with mental health issues.
"They open their heart, they talk freely on how they feel, how they think," Iannotta stated. "And we get to see what these young kids have to face on a daily basis about their problems. It refers to Krypton, the world from which Superman comes, because one of the guys really thinks he also comes from Krypton."
And there is always diversity in the Ristretto Shorts Night that screens Oct. 8 at Digital Gym Cinema with the winning films highlighted on Oct. 12 at the festival’s gala. I had the honor of overseeing the jury for the Ristretto Awards, and while I cannot tell which films won, I can assure you that they are all amazing.
So explore the diversity of Italian films and an Italian perspective as the San Diego Italian Film Festival runs through this weekend and next at both the Museum of Photographic Arts and Digital Gym Cinema.
