Selfies (2019) Open Roads 2019

Selfies is made up entirely of footage shot by two friends Alessandro and Pietro who record their daily life via selfies. Living in a small town in Italy where the criminal organization the Camorra holds sway the pair have to navigate growing up and trying to decide what path they are going to take. Along the way the young men use the form to record not only their thoughts and lives but those of the people they interact with on a daily basis.

How you react to the film is going to be determined how you feel about the selfie mode for 90 minutes. For me it was a mixed blessing. While I loved that it allowed for an immediacy and an intimacy that you don’t get from any other film, it kind of ceases to be visually interesting. It is largely a series of long single takes, which wore me down. Don’t get me wrong I am thrilled with the revalations of lives lived in the film, I just didn’t like the presentation.

Worth a look

Open Roads 2019 Capsule reviews PIRANHAS, SONNO GASSMAN and NORMAL

PIRANHAS
PIRANHAS  is based on a novel and screenplay by Robert Saviano, who’s book about the Italian organized crime group known as the Comorrah was made into a modern classic by Matteo Garrone. Here Saviano and director Claudio Giovannesi return to the world of crime focusing on a group of teenagers who fall into a life of crime working for and then challenging the established mobs.

One of my must sees for this year’s Open Roads Festival, I was really looking forward to seeing another crime film based on Saviano’s work. While never bad, Piranhas never fully clicked for me. Looking too slickly perfect and toning down events by keeping them off screen the film plays like a flashy prime time TV version of a mob film. Yea, the characters are there, and yea we are pulled along by events but the hard edge seems blunted since we don’t really see the violence.

I liked it but I didn’t love it and when it was done I wanted to go see something grittier like Gomorrah

SONNO GASSMAN
I can’t really do a write up on SONNO GASSMAN because I can’t really write up a smile. The film is a loving portrait of actor, director, writer, family man Vittorio Gassman. Combining clips from his films with interviews with those that new and loved him the film is a portrait of a man who was a fixture on the stages and screens of the world for half a century. If you’ve ever seen and liked a film with Gassman then odds are you will fall in love with the great man all over again. Forgive me for not saying more but this is a film you just need to see.

NORMAL
I honestly don’t know what to make of Normal. A meditation on what is normal and the rhythms of life the film the has some gloriously photographed sequences, such as the opening water “ballet” , that are supposed to blend together toward some greater meaning. I’m not sure that happens. I do know that I loved all the bits and images, and I wish that that I could have seen them on a big screen. If you like experimental films or atypical documentary/essays give the film a go. All others might want to take a pass.

For tickets and more information to these or any other film paying at OPEN ROADS go here.

The Disappearance of My Mother (2019) Open Roads 2019

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY OTHER is a great film. It is an unexpected delight that has haunted me in the weeks since I saw it. It is the sort of film I wish I could have made about my mom.

The film is a portrait of former fashion model, Marxist and educator Benedetta Barzini by her son. Made because his mother is constantly talking about going away to an island where there is no one, no credit cards, no money, and no computers, it is an effort to come to terms with his mother and her impending “disappearance”.

Raw real and extremely intimate, this is the sort of a film only a mother’s son could have made. Partly because he is the only one who would be bold enough to shoot his mother at times we would never want to be filmed, but also only a mother would allow her son to shoot her at those times. Yes she complains about being filmed while she sleeps, but she still allowed the footage to be shown. This is a film that feels exactly what it is, a mother and child hanging out and talking about her life and we are better for it.

I love this film. I love how we see the love between the pair. I love how we see the cranky mother not being sure why her son is making a film or why she is a getting an award. More I love the moments where the mothers mask falls and we get moments of pure joy. For example the moments where director Beniamino Barrese films his mother in the court yard of her home. She poses as he whizzes around her. There is a wonderful life in her eyes and smile we rarely see these days.

What makes this film shine is that despite being a lovely portrait of feisty woman it is also a wonderful mediation on mothers and sons, of growing old and living on our own terms. Barzini has lived life on her own terms. She did what she had to and she will stand for nothing less than her way. She is a kick ass woman of the highest order. She is a kind of example of the sort of person we see too rarely

This is a must see film. One of the best films at Open Roads, one of my favorites of 2019 and an absolute must see.

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER AND ISTITUTO LUCE CINECITTÀ ANNOUNCE COMPLETE LINEUP FOR THE 19TH EDITION OF OPEN ROADS: NEW ITALIAN CINEMA, JUNE 6-12

New York, NY (May 9, 2019) ­ Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà announce the complete lineup for the 19th edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, June 6-12.

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema is the leading screening series to offer North American audiences a diverse and extensive lineup of contemporary Italian films. This year¹s edition again strikes a balance between emerging talents and esteemed veterans, commercial and independent fare, outrageous comedies, gripping dramas, and captivating documentaries, with in-person appearances by many of the filmmakers.

The Opening Night film is Claudio Giovannesi¹s Piranhas, adapted from the novel by Gomorrah writer Roberto Saviano. The fourth film by Giovannesi and winner of the Berlinale Silver Bear Best Script Award, Piranhas follows a group of cocksure young men enraptured by the local Camorra who find themselves gradually descending into the violent, paranoid world of the Napoli mafia. Highlights of the lineup include Paolo Sorrentino¹s Loro, a satirical reimagining of the fall of Silvio Berlusconi with The Great Beauty¹s Toni Servillo as the disgraced and debaucherous prime minister; Mario Martone¹s stirring period drama Capri-Revolution, which centers on a young goatherd who finds herself drawn to a commune of politically radical artists and intellectuals in pre-WWI Capri; Gianni Zanasi¹s Lucia¹s Grace, starring Alba Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro, I Am Love) as a conflicted land surveyor who learns that her new building project threatens the environmental safety of the city; actor Valerio Mastandrea¹s directorial feature debut Laughing, a powerfully cathartic exploration of grief punctuated by disarming humor and flashes of poetic realism; and the evocative romance Ricordi?, Valerio Mieli¹s earthy meditation on love following an unnamed couple wrestling with the passage of time and the tidal forces of memory.

Documentaries feature strongly in the Open Roads lineup, including the North American premiere of Agostino Ferrente¹s lyrical and moving Selfie, a chronicle of adolescent friendship in the gang-ravaged Traiano region of Naples largely filmed on smartphones by the 16-year-old subjects; The Disappearance of My Mother, an intimate, inquisitive portrait of cinematographer-turned-director Beniamino Barrese¹s mother, the renowned model, activist, and feminist educator Benedetta Barzini; Normal, a sweeping work of anthropology from Adele Tulli that reckons with instilled and reinforced gender identities in modern Italian society; and Sono Gassman! Vittorio re della commedia, Fabrizio Corallo¹s engaging survey of the life, work, and legacy of the Italian screen icon Vittorio Gassman.

This year¹s edition of Open Roads will also showcase a number of breakout performances, including  Ciro D¹Emilio¹s coming-of-age soccer dramaIf Life Gives You Lemons, which features a compelling lead performance by Giampiero De Concilio; Federico Bondi¹s FIPRESCI-winning sophomore narrative feature Dafne, anchored by Carolina Raspanti¹s performance as a young woman with Down¹s syndrome grappling with the death of her mother; and writer-director Laura Luchetti¹s Twin Flower, starring nonprofessional actors Anastasiya Bogach and Kallil Kone as a pair of teenage runaways who forge a relationship haunted by their respective pasts. Additional standouts of the lineup include Euphoria, Valeria Golino¹s quietly wrenching portrait of two brothers forced to reckon with their long-unspoken resentments when one falls ill; Edoardo De Angelis¹sThe Vice of Hope, a stirring survival saga about a desperate woman fighting to escape from her family¹s criminal enterprise; and Magical Nights, Paolo Virzi¹s murder mystery­cum­film industry satire studded with winking references to Italian-cinema legends.

Open Roads will also feature a special repertory screening of Bernardo Bertolucci¹s 1962 directorial debut La Commare Secca, a savvy, formally audacious murder mystery adapted from a short story by Pier Paolo Pasolini that marks a fitting introduction to the Italian master, who passed away in November at the age of 77.

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema is co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Organized by Florence Almozini and Dan Sullivan, Film at Lincoln Center; and by Carla Cattani, Griselda Guerrasio, and Monique Catalino, Istituto Luce Cinecittà.

Tickets for Open Roads: New Italian Cinema go on sale May 17, with Film at Lincoln Center members receiving an early access period beginning May 15. Tickets are $15; $12 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $10 for Film at Lincoln Center members. See more and save with the 3+ film discount package or Open Roads All-Access Pass. Learn more at filmlinc.org.

Acknowledgments

Antonio Monda, Italian Cultural Institute New York and Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò.

FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS

All films screen digitally at the Walter Reade Theater (165 W. 65th St.) unless otherwise noted.