Coming To America, The Next Big Thing
Salve ragazzi,
I’m excited to tell you about this next Best Picture (David Di Donatello Awards) nominated film! This one is getting rave reviews from all over; it was awarded the Prix du Jury 2022, the third most important prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and is coming soon to the USA.
Thanks to Cinema Made In Italy, Le Otto Montagne (The Eight Mountains) is set for screenings at the Film at Lincoln Center and the Angelika Film Center in New York City. It was directed by a Belgian couple (Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch) but features three of Italy’s best actors: Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi, and Filippo Timi, and is an Italian language film.
Le Otto Montagne is also scheduled to screen in California next month, and for the rest of us, not in NYC or LA? I’m on it and will let you know when I know more. Hopefully, I’ll have good news about VOD.
Variety called it “A Stirring, Sprawling, Epic, and Intimate Tale.”
From the Simon &Schuster website: Pietro is a lonely boy living in Milan. With his parents becoming more distant each day, the only thing the family shares is their love for the mountains that surround Italy.
While on vacation at the foot of the Aosta Valley, Pietro meets Bruno, an adventurous, spirited local boy. Together they spend many summers exploring the mountains’ meadows and peaks and discover the similarities and differences in their lives, their backgrounds, and their futures. The two boys come to find the true meaning of friendship and camaraderie, even as their divergent paths in life—Bruno’s in the mountains, Pietro’s across the world—test the strength and meaning of their connection.
ABOUT THE DIRECTORS: Felix van Groeningen is one of those directors that I know about his work, but not much about him. Van Groeningen gave us Beautiful Boy, starring Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell, and the Oscar-nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown.
Charlotte Vandermeersch is his wife and collaborated with her husband on The Broken Circle Breakdown as well as Le Otto Montagne.
The film has been nominated for many Italian Academy Awards (Premi David Di Donatello): Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Producer, Best Actor (Borghi and Marinelli), Best Supporting Actor (Filippo Timi), Best Cinematography (Ruben Impens), and a handful of other awards that I don’t care as much about (JUST KIDDING! I care.)
The film is based on an award-winning homonymous novel by Paolo Cognetti.
I plan to be in New York at a Lincoln Center screening (or two) for screenings and the planned Q&A with Alessandro Borghi and the directors, so more about this later.
FOUND ON THE CRITERION CHANNEL
I was happy to discover the exclusive streaming premiere of a beautiful little movie I had been dying to see in American theaters - Il Buco (The Hole). I first watched it at the 2021 New York Film Festival, but I almost skipped it because, to tell you the truth, I hadn’t been a big fan of the director. Try as I may, I just can’t fall in love with Michelangelo Frammartino’s previous film, Le Quattro Volte.
Il Buco is a different story.
In 1961 speleologists showed up in breathtaking Calabria to explore the world's third deepest cave, the Bifurto Abyss, near Cerchiara di Calabria.
Frammartino takes us half a mile down into “Il Buco” (which means “the hole”), and let me tell you; it’s a realistic experience! This movie is so. very. QUIET, with little dialogue, and yet riveting all the same. It kept me on the edge of my seat with the exploration and a side story about an elderly cowherd who watches them from above. Thumbs up 👍, A+, loved it.
I have to say, I am probably the only person in the universe who did not like Frammartino’s Le Quattro Volte. I fast-forwarded through a lot of it, and so if you want to judge for yourself…
New York Times superstar critic A. O. Scott said of it: “Le Quattro Volte,” an idiosyncratic and amazing new film by Michelangelo Frammartino, is so full of surprises — nearly every shot contains a revelation, sneaky or overt, cosmic or mundane — that even to describe it is to risk giving something away.
Cheri Passell of I Love Italian Movies said: “Tedious.”
FOUND IT FREE ON YOUTUBE - Nico 1988
This English language biopic about the enigmatic Nico, Andy Warhol’s muse and protopunk Velvet Underground singer was directed by a severely underrated yet extraordinarily talented Italian director, Susanna Nicchiarelli.
Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, who plays Nico, portrays the loud, lewd, and crude ex-model who sank deeper and deeper into a self-absorbed mire of self-destruction.
She excuses herself on a house-hunting afternoon to shoot heroin into battered ankles, pines after a son that she either gave up or was stolen from her when he was 6, and she seems intent on creating a mythology for herself, for posterity. In the film, she wavered between authenticity and bald-faced lies about her past. Who was Niko, and what made her so beguiling for Andy Warhol and the pop art culture?
Probably no one can answer that question, but according to Nicchiarelli, those still alive who knew her best, like her son Ari, are eternally devoted to her.
Some movies are uploaded illegally onto YouTube, but this one is free, courtesy of YouTube, so ENJOY GUILT FREE!
I was happy to learn that Nicchiarelli will soon be on the set again, making a TV series called Fireworks, about Italian kids who fought the Nazis and fascists for the Resistance.
The historical series is based on the book Fuochi d’artificio and is about a little girl named Marta, who, with a group of friends, makes mischief to thwart the enemy.
Said Nicchiarelli: “…these kids run around in bikes and save the world from Nazis and fascists.”
Can’t wait!
Maybe I’ll see you at Lincoln Center? Say hello if you see me!
Un bacione,
Cheri
America’s Cheerleader For Italian Cinema
Wow, "The Eight Mountains" looks lovely! This is the kind of story that appeals to me, about personal growth, friendships, differences, and mutual respect (is my "guess"). I will be waiting on this one! As always, thanks for the gem in "The Hole." If you give it an A+, it will definitely be worth my time and engagement!