San Diego Italian Film Festival Shares An Activist Perspective

Speaker 1: 00:00 Tonight, both the GI film festival and the San Diego Italian film festival kickoff, their online programming, the Italian film festival will be running all month. KPBS, film critic, Beth Huck, Amando previews the festival with its artistic director and Tonio ENR date and executive director. Deanna Augustini. The festival has revised their tagline from being an Italian perspective to saying an activist Italian perspective. So what does that mean for this year's film? Speaker 2: 00:32 It means that we really believe that the Italian movies are movies that can be used as a perspective to talk about issues and problems that are important for Italians and also for people for Americans as well. And so we selected the movies having in mind, this general theme activism this year is an election year. We really believe that everybody needs to do their part and, but our movies are not going to be just about the politics or immigration, but also about art also about disability, also about gender inequality, also about inclusion, all our movies, and also most of our shorts are going to deal with social justice issues. So that are very relevant in contemporary Italy in Italy today, but also believe us in America today. Speaker 3: 01:28 Well, what I was going to add is that oftentimes when it comes to activism, some people might be automatically going to documentaries or something related yes. To strictly to politics or, and, uh, when we, you will see d'Italia perspective that we're bringing in definitely has that component for sure, but also through our comedies and through some other documentaries, it brings a different type of, um, lens. So that of being an activist in your everyday life, which is what we hope also, our audience can take out of this. Speaker 1: 02:07 So the festival will be kicking off this Thursday with a film called it will be chaos. So I have to say that is kind of a fun, daring and exciting way to launch the festival this particular year. So what can you tell me about this film? Speaker 2: 02:21 It will be chaos in particular is an extraordinary documentary about migration crisis migration crisis in Europe. But of course also in Africa, and of course also in the middle East, in particular, in this movie, we're going to follow a family, uh, fleeing from Syria and trying to reach, you know, easily. And then, and then Europe, uh, the two directors [inaudible] channel are two Italian independent filmmakers that have been living in New York city for, I don't know, 20 years. And yes, so we start Thursday night. Our audience will be able to watch the movie for three nights, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, and then Sunday morning at 11:00 AM. We will host the Q and a conversation with the Filippo Lorina, joining us from new Yorker on zoom and, uh, be able to have, you know, our usual Sunday morning conversation with the two with the two directors. So I'm very excited about that. And, uh, we thought that this was the perfect movie with the perfect title to start the, you know, this particular festival. Speaker 4: 03:41 I had the pleasure of seeing a, I think it would be called the docu film or docu drama on Caravaggio that you guys showcased. And this year you are looking to another famous artist Michelangelo. Speaker 2: 03:53 Yes, absolutely. So I'm, I'm glad that you mentioned Caravaggio because, uh, this movie as well, Michelangelo, Michelangelo, Angeles is made the, by the same team, the same team in terms of, uh, production and idea behind the it's another extraordinary movie about an extraordinary artist for us. Our activism is of course about social justice, but also about art because art has the power to transform our lives and as also the power to transform an artist's life. And we are going to see an experience that, uh, for Michelangelo, what we're going to see with Michelangelo is a, is a sort of documentary biopic reinvented because we're going to have two actors, one plane in all the Michelangelo, remembering his life and work. And on the other side, we're going to have a scholar, a historian that wrote a book about the Michelangelo and all the other artists in Renaissance, Italy that is going to tell us also, you know, insightful information. And what is really extraordinary about the movie is the ability of seeing his work of art in a way that we never experienced before. We're going to see the Sistine chapel before it was a, you know, uh, reinvented by Michelangelo. And then we're going to see Michelangelo at work with that. We're going to see Michelangelo's work with the, with the, with the David. So it's quite the quite extraordinary, but also very informative Speaker 4: 05:54 And kind of emphasizing and even more international to the Italian film Speaker 1: 05:58 Festival is Bangla, which gives us a kind of an Asian perspective through. Speaker 3: 06:03 So of course we also looked for comedies that would still fit the bill of the activism piece. And so Bangla was just perfect. It's, uh, it deals with, um, identity identity in terms of, uh, where your traditions from your family, where you're born, where do you feel you belong? And the struggle between that? So a very young director Fiheem who is also the main character of the, um, in the movie is of a Bangladeshi heritage. And, but he was born and raised in Rome. He has a thick Roman accent. He's 22. He lives in, uh, one of the most, um, diverse neighborhood, uh, in Rome. And he's, you know, he's a musician, he plays in a band. He, um, hangs out with his friends, does all the things that Italian youth would do. Uh, at the same time, his family is very traditional Bangladeshi family, and so very rooted in, uh, their own, um, identity Speaker 1: 07:13 Privilege of being a judge for the restreto program. So talk a little bit about the shorts program. Speaker 2: 07:18 Yes, we've been, uh, wanted to do that for many years. And finally, last year we started with this, um, a ward. So we, we ask everybody, everybody here in the States, you need Ellie in the ward to participate to the competition, um, with the criteria that, uh, either you need to have, you need to be, you know, an Italian director or deal with any Tahlia Italian or Italian American team this year as well. We put in the, uh, call for submissions, a precise emphasis on social justice themes. In other news this year is the audience award. So whenever you watch a movie on our digital platform, you can score the shorter. And that's very important for us because we really want to engage our audience as much as possible. Speaker 1: 08:15 That was Beth Armando speaking with Antonio Ionata and Deanna Augustini of the San Diego Italian film festival. The festival will offer a film and discussion each week in October.