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 Istituto Luce Cinecittà and the Italian Trade Commission, 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.
Imagine Chekhov’s Three Sisters (now five), in 1980s Sicily. Adapted from her prize-winning stage play of the same name, Emma Dante’s moving, decades-traversing drama THE MACALUSO SISTERS follows a family of five orphaned sisters living on the top floor of a distressed building in Palermo, who rent pastel-painted doves to weddings and birthdays to earn a living. When a sudden catastrophic seaside event alters the family dynamic, they are left grappling with the outcome. The delicate balance of sisterhood is tested in this accomplished, generation-spanning three-act sophomore feature. In the Financial Times, Wendy Ide writes that THE MACALUSO SISTERS is, “a hauntingly lovely, strikingly unusual portrait of family trauma.” –Film Forum
THE MACALUSO SISTERS premiered in competition at the 2020 Venice International Film Festival where it won the Pasinetti Awards (given by the National Union of Italian Journalists) for Best Film and Best Actress (awarded to the ensemble cast playing the sisters).
Once upon a time, in a small family suburb on the outskirts of Rome, the cheerful heat of summer camouflages a stifling atmosphere of alienation. From a distance, the families seem normal, but it’s an illusion: in the houses, courtyards and gardens, silence shrouds the subtle sadism of the fathers, the passivity of the mothers and the guilty indifference of adults. But it’s the desperation and repressed rage of the children that will explode and cut through this grotesque facade, with devastating consequences for the entire community.
“An explosion of droll talent in one wild, impressionistic ride.” –Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter
“A superbly shot, viscerally acted ensemble drama .” –Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
WINNER, SILVER BEAR FOR BEST SCREENPLAY 2020 Berlin International Film Festival
Filmed over three years on the borders between Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon, NOTTURNO captures the everyday life that lies behind the continuing tragedy of civil wars, ferocious dictatorships, foreign invasions and the murderous apocalypse of ISIS. Gianfranco Rosi (SACRO GRA, Venice Golden Lion Winner, FIRE AT SEA, Berlin Golden Bear winner and Oscar® nominee) constructs a sublime cinematic journey through the region finding peace and light within the chaos and despair in the aftermath of war. A mosaic of intimate moments and luminous images, NOTTURNO is a profound and urgent cinematic achievement, from a master of the documentary form.
“Devastating and surprisingly delicate.” —The New York Times
“The best documentary of the year.” “Hypnotic…the filmmaker’s virtuosic eye can spot grandeur in the smallest moments…This is cinema through and through.” —IndieWire
“A sweeping work of care and one that is often piercing in its painful beauty.” —Vox
“”Rosi, to his credit, has always been unafraid to challenge the conventions of the traditional observational documentary that dictate absolute fidelity to some notion of impartial objectivity.” —Variety
“NOTTURNO”
