The Cinema Made in Italy program promotes and distributes contemporary Italian films to theaters in the United States, insuring that the best of Italian cinema is always available to fans, no matter where they live in the country. The series is an initiative sponsored by Cinecittà and is managed by Deutchman Company Inc, which handles the marketing and distribution of the films. In previous years, the initiative has released or supported such films as Paolo Sorrentino’s Academy Award winning Best Foreign Language Film,“The Great Beauty,” Valeria Golino’s “Honey,” Marco Bellochio’s “Dormant Beauty,” Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Me and You,” Nanni Moretti’s “Mia Madre” and Gianfranco Rosi’s Academy Award nominated Best Documentary, “Fire at Sea” among others.
Winner of the Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight Award and a rising voice of Italian cinema, filmmaker Jonas Carpignano continues his exploration of the intricacies of life in contemporary Calabria with this compelling character study of a teenager, Chiara, who gradually comes to discover that her close-knit family is not all that it seems. In this furiously paced drama, Chiara investigates her father’s disappearance just one day after her oldest sister’s birthday. As she gets closer to the difficult truth about her mysteriously missing father—and the crime syndicates that control her region— Chiara is forced to decide what kind of future she wants for herself. A coming-of-age chronicle like no other, A CHIARA is both an intimate and universal family story.
Director’s Fortnight, Cannes 2021
New York Film Festival 2021
Nominated for 3 Independent Spirit Awards
“Instantly engaging. A Chiara lifts the director’s scrappy neo-neorealism to another level, showing him increasingly in command of the medium and physically entrenched in the milieu he continues to explore in fascinating detail. His most accomplished, polished and affecting film to date though it still maintains enough grittiness and rough edges to fit the material. Again coaxing impeccably unselfconscious performances out of nonprofessional actors… There’s a new urgency to the drama once it kicks in, a more haunting intimacy that comes in no small part from the churning depths of Rotolo’s central performance. A shattering climax.” –David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
Opens May 27 in Theaters
Mondocane
MONDOCANE a film by Alessandro Celli
In the not-too-distant future on Italy’s southern coast, the city of Taranto has become a toxic wasteland ruled by warring gangs and surrounded by barbed wire, where best friends Pietro (nicknamed Mondocane) and Cristian (nicknamed Pisspants) dream of escaping their hardscrabble existence for a better life in nearby New Taranto. Opportunity knocks when Hothead, the charismatic and dangerous leader of a local gang called the Ants, recruits the two boys and gives them everything they fantasized about: money in their pockets, a family, and a father figure. The friendship begins to splinter, though, as Cristian displays a surprising talent for mayhem and quickly rises through the ranks. With a new female friend pushing them further apart, an obsessed cop hounding the gang, and Hothead becoming increasingly unhinged, the boys barrel toward a confrontation that will determine if their bond is strong enough to survive. Recalling everything from Mad Max to Lord of the Flies, from Oliver Twist to Waterworld, director Alessandro Celli’s thrilling feature debut is a stylish post-apocalyptic vision and an inspiring testament to the power of friendship in an unjust world.
“An entertaining, dystopic work. Draws from… John Carpenter to George Miller to Lord of the Flies.“ –Camillo De Marco, Cineuropa
“A potent tonal mix of the post-apocalyptic and the proto-cyberpunk.” –Tommaso Tocci, La Repubblica
“Oliver Twist meets Blade Runner in the dusty and industrial world of Mondocane.” –Di Mario Manca, Vanity Fair
Opens May 20, 2022
New York City – Angelika Film Center
San Francisco – Landmark Opera Plaza
Los Angeles – Landmark Westwood
Berkeley, CA – Landmark Albany Twin
Glendale, CA – Laemmle Glendale
San Diego CA – Landmark Hillcrest
St Louis, MO – Landmark Plaza Frontenac
Opens May 27, 2022
Denver, CO – Landmark Mayan Theatre
Columbus, OH – Gateway Film Center
Opens June 10, 2022
Cambridge, MA – Brattle Cinema
The Tale of King Crab
“THE TALE OF KING CRAB” a film by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis
Luciano is a wandering outcast in a remote, late 19th-century Italian village. His life becomes undone by alcohol, forbidden love, and a bitter conflict with the prince of the region over the right of passage through an ancient gateway. When the quarrel escalates, Luciano is exiled to the distant Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego where, with the help of ruthless gold-diggers, he searches for a mythical treasure, paving his way toward redemption. However, in these barren lands, only greed and insanity can prevail.
World Premiere: 2021 Cannes Film Festival
“KING CRAB is just the kind of film that earned the Directors Fortnight a reputation as treasure trove for original, bold new voices”. —Leonardo Goi, MUBI
“Spectacularly well-constructed and told with an equal balance of acerbic cynicism and other worldly mystique, THE TALE OF KING CRAB is a tremendously compelling journey into the past, formed around cherished cultural conventions that the directors effectively deconstruct in an effort to convey the deeper message at the heart of the film.” —Matthew Joseph Jenner, INTERNATIONAL CINEPHILE SOCIETY
In Theaters
April 15, 2022
Film at Lincoln Center, New York City
April 22, 2022
Ritz 5, Philadelphia
Kendall Square, Boston
Tower Theater, Miami
April 29, 2022
Landmark NuArt Theater, Los Angeles
Regal Westpark, Irvine CA
Regal Tara, Atlanta
Regal Arbor at Great Hills, Austin TX
Center for Contemporary art, Santa Fe NM
May 2, 2022
Time and Space Ltd, Hudson NY
May 6, 2022
Monica Film Center, Santa Monica CA
Playhouse, Pasadena CA
Noho 7, Los Angeles
Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema, Charleston WV
Film Streams Dundee, Omaha
New Plaza Cinema, New York City
May 13, 2022
Gateway Film Center, Columbus OH
Riviera Theater, Santa Barbara CA
Magic Lantern, Spokane WA
Grand Illusion Cinema, Seattle
Space Gallery, Portland, ME
Living Room Theaters, Boca Raton FL
Regal Downtown West, Knoxville TN
Regal Village Square, Las Vegas NV
Roxy Tribeca, New York City
May 19, 2022
Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland OH
May 20, 2022
Living Room Theaters, Portland OR
Guild Cinema, Alburquerque, NM
May 27, 2022
Sie Film Center, Denver CO
Roxie, San Francisco
Rialto Sebastopol, Sebastopol CA
Rialto Elmwood, Berkeley CA
Rafael Film Center, San Rafael CA
Aperture, Winston-Salem NC
A CHIARA
“THE TALE OF KING CRAB”
