The festival is a partnership between the Lismore Friendship Festival and BCC Cinemas, with all the films screening at the Keen St cinema complex on Saturday 15 June and Sunday 16 June 2019.
To celebrate Lismore’s First Italian Film Festival, drinks and canapes are included in the ticket price for the Opening Night Film Loro, and will be held from 5.30pm at the cinema with the film commencing at 6.30pm.
Buy tickets at eventcinemas.com.au/Cinema/Lismore/EventsFestivals/ItalianFilmFestival
LORO – Opening Gala Night – SATURDAY 15 JUNE
Seduction, glamour, corruption, drugs and raucous poolside parties: the life and times of scandal-plagued Silvio Berlusconi have long-demanded a screen depiction, and who else to deliver it than Paolo Sorrentino, the Academy Award-winning director of The Great Beauty and The Young Pope, who returns to cinema in spectacular fashion with this dazzling, topical and no-holds-barred look at life in Italy under the glistening eye of modern Europe’s most infamous politician.
With Loro, Sorrentino gradually unpeels the complex personality and motivations of the billionaire former Prime Minister – played with unmistakable panache by Toni Servillo – during a tumultuous period in his career, as his marriage to second wife Veronica Lario (Elena Sofia Ricci) fractures; all the while skillfully threading together stories of a wide variety of characters from multiple levels of society and their attempts to either ingratiate or distance themselves from him…
THE LAST PROSECCO – SUNDAY 16 JUNE
The Last Prosecco is a sparkling comedic mystery adapted from Fulvio Ervas’s eponymous novel, set amidst the competitive Prosecco business in the Veneto region. There, an awkward detective (Giuseppe Battiston, Perfect Strangers LIFF16), investigates the mysterious death of a gallant Count.
On the rolling hills where Prosecco grapes are grown, the dashing, opinionated Count Ancillotto – as liberal in his criticism of a nearby factory as he is proud of his family’s heritage of making the finest Prosecco – kills himself with the theatrical flair and style that have marked his life. But the motives for the suicide are puzzling, and the mystery deepens when a couple of the Count’s enemies are gunned down. Portly police inspector Stucky, a seemingly bumbling outsider, is assigned to the baffling case – in which the main suspect is a dead man.
PUT NONNA IN THE FREEZER – SUNDAY 16 JUNE
Is it acceptable to swindle the state when the state swindles you? This is the doubt that grips Claudia (Miriam Leone, At War for Love LIFF17), a young art restorer who manages to make ends meet thanks to her grandma’s pension, because the Superintendence is late paying her for a recent government job.
When her grandma suddenly passes away, bankruptcy seems to be looming, so Claudia, with the complicity of her staff, “freezes” her grandma so she can continue to collect her pension until the state pays her what she is due. Just when the solution to Claudia’s problems seems finally close, Simone Recchia (Fabio De Luigi, It’s All About Karma LIFF17), the most incorruptible – and clumsiest – officer in the Tax Police turns up. Amidst ingenious deceptions, disguises and misunderstandings, the young art restorer’s scam will begin to melt like a frozen grandmother in the sun.
MY BIG GAY ITALIAN WEDDING – SUNDAY 16 JUNE
Based on the hit off-Broadway play, it’s a merry comedy of matrimony as newly engaged Antonio brings his fiancé Paolo to his hometown to meet his headstrong parents. From the writer/director of Italian Film Festival hit What A Beautiful Surprise (LIFF15), it’s a quest to make a city founded on religious tradition understand that love is love.
Antonio and Paolo are finally getting married. They decide to celebrate in the stunning old Italian village where Antonio grew up. While Antonio’s mother immediately supports his intentions, her husband Roberto (Diego Abatantuono, Daddy’s Girl LIFF16), the town Mayor, is much more reluctant. Paolo, who has not spoken to his conservative mother in a long time, must get her to the wedding as a condition of the marriage. Throw in a couple of wacky roommates (including popular singer Diana del Bufalo) and the aisle to the altar is paved with hilarity, hijinks and lots of love!