Film series will show ‘Bread and Tulips’
KINGSTON, N.Y. >> The Italian romantic comedy “Bread and Tulips,” about a disillusioned housewife whose day trip to get away becomes the starting point of a new life, is this month’s offering from the Movies With Spirit series. The film will be shown Saturday, July 20, at 7 p.m. at Congregation Emanuel of the Hudson Valley, 243 Albany Ave.
This award-winning film, filled with spontaneity and serendipity, tells the story about Rosalba Barletta (played by Licia Maglietta), a disenchanted housewife from southern Italy who temporarily flees her life’s malaise to take a bus tour after years of being taken for granted by her selfcentered and controlling businessman husband (Antonio Catania).
While on a stop, her tour bus accidentally leaves without her, and Rosalba finds herself stranded. Instead of waiting there as her husband instructs by phone, she starts hitchhiking toward home, only to impulsively detour to Venice.
There, she checks into an inn run by a kindly but eccentric Icelander named Fernando Girasole (Bruno Ganz), who speaks his own form of Italian. Rosalba intends to return home the next day, but she misses her train. She ends up getting a job at a local flower shop run by an irascible old anarchist and soon finds herself enjoying her new life.
Her teenage sons don’t seem bothered by their mom’s absence, but Rosalba’s husband grows increasingly agitated and hires a detective, who turns out to be inept, to track her down.
The 2000 film by director Silvio Soldino won 32 critic and festival awards, including the Academy of Italian Cinema’s awards for Best Film, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Sound.
The film’s trailer can be found on YouTube at tinyurl.com/Bread-andTulips-trailer.
The movie, whose original title is “Pane e tulipani,” is in Italian with English subtitles. It runs 1 hour and 54 minutes and is rated PG-13.
The Kingston screening will be followed by a facilitated discussion. Refreshments will be served. Attendees over age 12 are asked to contribute $10 a person.
The monthly Movies With Spirit series, organized by Gerry Harrington of Kingston, seeks to stimulate people’s sense of joy and wonder, inspire love and compassion, evoke a deepened understanding of people’s integral connection with others and with life itself, and support individual cultures, faith paths and beliefs while simultaneously transcending them.
The films are screened in diverse houses of worship and reverence across Ulster and Dutchess counties at 7 p.m. on the third Saturday of every month. The series has no religious affiliation.
For more information about “Bread and Tulips” and the rest of the series, contact Harrington at (845) 389-9201 or at gerryharrington@mindspring.com. Details are also available at facebook.com/MoviesWithSpirit.