Go Italian this weekend
ACCLAIMED ACTOR RAOUL BOVA KICKS OFF WEEKEND OF MOVIE GOLD Hollywood star opens Italian Film Festival at gala evening in Johannesburg.
Ster-Kinekor Nouveau enthusiasts will get a taste of Italy at the Johannesburg Italian Film Festival (Jiff), which runs from today until Sunday.
Acclaimed Italian actor Raoul Bova is in South Africa for this much-anticipated event.
The third annual Jiff is held under the auspices of the Consulate General of Italy and returns to Rosebank Cinema Nouveau.
“The main purpose of the annual Jiff, is to create a platform through which to celebrate the joy and magic of Italy’s big screen,” says Claudio Coci, president of the Cento Culturale Italo Sud Africano and curator of the festival.
“Italy has a very long, rich and influential cinematic history and Jiff, which is a free festival, aims to share this with an enthusiastic South African film-loving public.”
This year, the festival features Bova’s films. He is known to a broader audience thanks to mainstream Hollywood films such as Under the Tuscan Sun, All Roads Lead to Rome and The Tourist. Bova opened the festival in Johannesburg at an invitation-only gala evening last night. Rosebank Cinema Nouveau A young married couple whose relationship is hitting the rocks take in an old man struggling to remember his past. As Giovanna and her husband continue to grow ever more estranged from each other, the old man’s moral dignity remains the one thing left that holds Giovanna back from embarking on an affair with her handsome neighbour (Raoul Bova). Rosebank Cinema Nouveau Giuseppe (Raoul Bova), a Sicilian fisherman, and Yousef (Giovanni Martorana), an exiled Tunisian, share a friendship, a fishing business and Medea, the vessel on which they ply their trade. Giuseppe hears a radio broadcast about a wanted terrorist with Yousef’s name and in a fit of paranoia locks his friend up in the ship’s cabin. A gripping and claustrophobic thriller that plays with the fears of the post-9/11 generation. Rosebank Cinema Nouveau A documentary drama based on a true story. After his son dies from an ecstasy overdose, a wellknown TV journalist decides to follow the drug squad in their fight against drug trafficking in Milan. Filmed in a verite style, the movie follows this grieving parent on a journey into the dangerous Italian underworld. Rosebank Cinema Nouveau A documentary film by Francesco Lama that looks at the complex identity of the people of Sicily. Seeking to move beyond the indifference to corruption, mafia and other problems that have marred the island, Lama’s film instead highlights the traditions, food and rich multicultural heritage that make Sicily one of the Mediterranean’s most compelling destinations. Rosebank Cinema Nouveau Guia is 30 years old, she works in a prestigious international fashion magazine, she drives a convertible, she travels by private jet and lives between Milan and Paris. She has everything, or at least she thought she had it all, until she finds herself in a remote village in Apulia where she starts falling for Renzo, a handsome local farmer. Rosebank Cinema Nouveau In this gender-bending comedy an accomplished and well-travelled architect returns home to Italy to find work, quickly discovering that her native country is not as open-minded about her abilities as a strong, professional female. Initially, she struggles to find a job she truly loves and is passionate about before realising that if she passes herself off as a man, she might have more success.