Edited by Paul Maximilian Boche, Reporting from London.
(Terraferma Cast in Venice at the Biennale Festival – Photo Alessio Costantino for POSI+TIVE)
TERRAFERMA – Director Emanuele Crialese
Thursday 13 VUE6 20:45; Wednesday 14 VUE6 12:45
A group of refugee Africans are rescued from the sea and taken to the remote Sicilian island of Linosa. Half starving these Africans are taken into the homes of the islanders who eke out a living from the sea. A drama based on real life events that currently beset the islands, it is against the law to harbour these desperate people and this film reveals the spirit and humanity of the community.
( Italian Actor Pierpaolo Spollon as Stefano in Terraferma – Photo Alessio Costantino )
In the next issue of POSI+TIVE Magazine number 8 an interview with the young italian actor Pierpaolo Spollon, who has acted as Stefano in Terraferma movie.
SEVEN ACTS OF MERCY (Sette Opere Di Misericordia) – Directors Gianluca De Serio and Massimiliano De Serio
Tuesday 18 NFT2 20:45; Wednesday 19 NFT2 13:15
A raw edgy and unsentimental modern-day story that pulls no punches the film tells the story of an illegal Slovenian immigrant in Italy who is drawn in a plot to steal and sell a
baby in order to gain a legitimate identity. Ensconced in a safe house, with the owner held captive, Luminata questions her desperate action with a very different and tentatively redemptive conclusion.
LI AND THE POET (Io Sono Li) – Directore Andrea Segre
Thursday 20 VUE6 18:15; Friday 21 VUE6 15:15
This film takes the essence of an all-too-real-life situation (the recent influx of Chinese immigrants into the environs of Venice) and gives us a vivid contemporary story that is also simultaneously a new filmic look at aspects of Venetian life, refreshingly free of picture postcard tourism. It is the story of Li who sells herself into slavery in order for her son to join her in Italy, and her friendship with a retired fisherman.
CORPO CELESTE – Director Alice Rohrwacher
Sunday 23 VUE3 18:15; Tuesday 25 NFT1 15:15
After cutting her hair as an act of defiance Marta, a young rebellious girl recently arrived from Switzerland in a strait-laced community in Southern Italy, begins to fall foul of the local church minions who are trying to focus all the young girls on elaborate preparations for the forthcoming Catholic confirmation celebrations. Marta tries to run away but ends up on a bizarre errand with the local priest.
THE JEWEL (Il Gioiellino) – Director Andrea Molaioli
Monday 24 VUE6 18:15; Tuesday 25 VUE6 15:15
The massive mismanagement and corruption surrounding the collapse of the gigantic food company, Parmalat, lays at the heart of this conspiracy thriller. It cleverly plots the rise and then dramatic fall of a family owned business nicknamed The Jewel, because of its value to the Italian economy. Centred around the cunning but pathetically loyal chief finance officer, played by Toni Servillo (Consequences of Love, Il Divo) who tries to hold the floundering company together as those around him fall to plundering its assets.
WHEN THE NIGHT (Quando La Notte) – Director Cristina Comencini
(Quando La Notte – Cristina Comencini, Claudia Pandolfi, Filippo Timi in Venice at the Movie Festival – Photos Alessio Costantino / POSI+TIVE MAGAZINE)
Monday 24 VUE3 21:00; Wednesday 26 VUE6 12:45
The strong narrative of WHEN THE NIGHT renders the film neither dogmatic nor mundane, rather it has some real surprises and is compelling because of the way it cleverly unfolds a bittersweet love story set against the dramatic backdrop of the Alps.
WE HAVE A POPE (Habemus Papam) – Director Nanni Moretti
Tuesday 25 NFT1 18:30; Thursday 27 VUE5 15:00
The newly elected Pope suffers a panic attack just as he is due to appear on St Peter’s balcony to greet the faithful, who have been patiently awaiting the conclave’s decision. His advisors, unable to convince him he is the right man for the job, seek help from a renowned psychoanalyst (and atheist). But his fear of the responsibility suddenly thrust upon him is one that he must face on his own.
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE – Director Paolo Sorrentino
Wednesday 26 VUE7 20:30; Thursday 27 VUE7 12:15
Cheyenne is a former rock star. At 50 he still dresses “Goth” and lives off his royalties in Dublin. The death of his father, with whom he wasn’t on speaking terms, brings him back to New York. On discovering his father had an obsession: to seek revenge for a humiliation he had
suffered, Cheyenne decides to pick up where his father left off, and starts a journey, at his own pace, across America.
DRIFTERS (Gli Sfiorati) – Director Matteo Rovere
Wednesday 26 VUE7 18:15; Thursday 27 VUE3 15:30
A snappy, sophisticated comedy centered on a young well meaning guy who, in skimming the surface of life, finds himself confronting his past and present demons. In trying to help a colleague, the complication of his father’s re-marriage and the arrival of his half-sister, his good intentions go awry spinning the day of the nuptials into chaos, ending with a deliciously funny denouement.
