Co-presented by the American Cinematheque and Luce Cinecittà, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture-Film Department, Bonato Milano 1960 and Leading Hotels of the World. Technical Sponsor: Rossano Ferretti. In collaboration with the Italian Trade Commission and the Italian Cultural Institute, Los Angeles, under the auspices of the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles.

Join us at the Egyptian and Aero Theatres for our annual celebration of Italian cinema, opening with Italy’s official Oscar submission for Best Foreign-Language Film, Paolo Virzì’s masterful HUMAN CAPITAL, a sharp social critique cloaked in an engrossing neo-noir mystery. Virzì’s David di Donatello winner is set among the upper-class enclaves of Northern Italy, while the family that’s the focus of director Alice Rohrwacher’s impressionistic THE WONDERS has moved to the central heartland for a simpler life as farmers. Francesco Munzi’s gripping BLACK SOULS is set in Calabria, where three brothers are caught in the ’Ndrangheta’s criminal web.

The documentary ITALY IN A DAY offers scenes from the entire country - it was assembled from more than 600 YouTube videos shot in a single 24-hour period as a snapshot of contemporary Italian life. BEAUTIFUL THINGS, a Nastro d'Argento winner for Best Documentary, looks at the changes a decade makes to four lives in Naples. Edoardo Winspeare’s narrative film QUIET BLISS follows four women in lower Salento during the economic recession. A long marriage tested by a cancer diagnosis forms the basis for Ferzan Ozpetek’s romantic drama FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS.

Comedy looms large in this year’s Cinema Italian Style lineup - particularly crime comedies. TV host Pif makes an assured debut behind the camera with THE MAFIA ONLY KILLS IN SUMMER, which traces the life of an Everyman who comes of age in organized crime stronghold Palermo. The Manetti brothers’ hilarious SONG 'E NAPULE salutes both Naples’ neomelodico singers and ’70s cop dramas by following a musician sent undercover to infiltrate a mob wedding. And director Sydney Sibilia’s I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT milks the economic downturn for laughs as underemployed university graduates go into the designer-drug business.

The series also looks indirectly at Italy’s place in the film world both past and present. Pupi Avati’s dark drama A GOLDEN BOY profiles a writer (Riccardo Scamarcio) in the shadow of his father – a B-movie screenwriter. And closing this year’s Cinema Italian Style is a new restoration made possible by main supporter Dolce & Gabbana, with Luce Cnecittà and Cineteca di Bologna: Giuseppe Tornatore’s CINEMA PARADISO, an Oscar-winning reminder of the strong spell movies can cast upon their viewers.

All films are in Italian with English subtitles, unless otherwise noted. Series compiled by Laura Delli Colli, Gwen Deglise and Camilla Cormanni. Program notes by John Hagelston.

Thursday,
November 13 – 6:30 PM

Co-presented with AFI FEST: Italy's Official Oscar Submission! HUMAN CAPITAL (IL CAPITALE UMANO), 2013, Film Movement, 110 min.

Produced by Indiana Production, Coproduced by Manny Films (FR); with Rai Cinema and Motorino Amaranto. Director Paolo Virzì relocates Stephen Amidon's novel from Connecticut to Northern Italy for this stylish neo-noir social critique, winner of seven David di Donatello Awards including Best Film, Screenplay (Pasquale Bruni), Leading Actress (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), Supporting Actress (Valeria Golino) and Supporting Actor (Fabrizio Gifuni), as well as eight Nastro d'Argento (Silver Ribbon) awards. Two families - the rich Bernaschis and the middle-class Rovellis - are tied together by an accident on the road in a dramatic night. "A chic thriller! A top-flight cast gives the character-driven drama depth and conviction." - Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter.

Red-carpet arrivals begin at 5:45 PM. The evening starts at 6:30 PM with the Cinema Italian Style opening ceremony, including presentation of CIS awards to Franca Sozzani (editor in chief of Vogue, Italy) and Giuseppe Tornatore. Feature starts at 7:00 PM. Director Paolo Virzì and actress Matilde Gioli will introduce the screening.

Tickets are only available at http://www.afi.com/afifest/freetickets.aspx

Double Feature: Los Angeles Premiere!
FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS(ALLACCIATE LE CINTURE), 2014, Pathè International, 110 min.

As director Ferzan Ozpetek notes of his luminous romantic drama, “In life, sooner or later, everything happens turbulently, exactly like in an airplane.” The bumps in this flight occur to Elena (Kasia Smutniak) and Antonio (Francesco Arca), whose long marriage faces challenges when Elena is diagnosed with cancer.Kasia Smutniak and Paola Minaccioni received the Nastro d'Argento award for best actresses of the year from the Italian film critics organization.

Director Alice Rohrwacher and her sister Alba (who has a featured role here) grew up in the countryside between Tuscany and Umbria, an experience that helped inspire this impressionistic drama, a Grand Prix winner at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Pre-teen Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu) is the oldest of four sisters in a family that’s fled the city in pursuit of a simple life of beekeeping. But country life isn’t always idyllic; the arrival of a German boy and a summertime contest put a strain on Gelsomina’s relationship with her strict father (Sam Louwyck). International diva Monica Bellucci makes a dazzling appearance as a reality TV star. In Italian, French, and German with English subtitles.

A segment of 9 X 10 NINETY, drawn from Italian historical footage in the Luce Archives, begins the program. FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS director Ferzan Ozpetek and actorFrancesco Scianna will introduce the first feature.

Double Feature: Los Angeles Premiere!
THE MAFIA ONLY KILLS IN SUMMER (LA MAFIA UCCIDE SOLO D’ESTATE), 2013, Distrib Films, 90 min.

Popular TV personality Pierfrancesco Diliberto, better known as Pif, earned David di Donatello and Nastro d'Argento awards as Best New Director for this remarkably assured portrait of organized crime’s long grip on Sicily. Pif also stars as Arturo, an Everyman who has grown up in a community where acceptance of Cosa Nostra violence is alternately hilarious and poignant. Clever use of archival footage (with characters inserted à la FORREST GUMP) brings to life the decades before high-profile assassinations in the 1990s roused the country to action against the Mafia.

When Paco (Alessandro Roja) can’t find work as a pianist, he gets a low-level job on the police force - and is soon reassigned to undercover work as a keyboardist in a band set to play at the wedding of a crime boss’s daughter. The Manetti brothers’ hilarious homage to ’70s cop films and Naples’ neomelodico singers earned four Nastro d'Argento awards, including Best Comedy.

A segment of 9 X 10 NINETY, drawn from Italian historical footage in the Luce Archives, begins the program. Director Pierfrancesco Diliberto aka Pif (THE MAFIA ONLY KILLS IN SUMMER) will introduce the first feature.

Double Feature: Los Angeles Premiere!
BLACK SOULS (ANIME NERE), 2014, Rai Com, 103 min. Dir. Francesco Munzi.

While siblings Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) are part of the ’Ndrangheta (the Calabrian Mafia), eldest brother Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane) prefers to tend the family land as a shepherd. But Luciano’s teenage son Leo (Giuseppe Fumo) would rather spend time with his drug-running uncles, and his reckless actions ignite a long-simmering feud with another local clan.

With 10 David di Donatello nominations and the 2014 Best Producer Nastro d’argento award, this biting comedy of life from director Sydney Sibilia with a cast of brilliant new Italian actors moves with the sleek assurance of a classic heist film. When research assistant Pietro (Edoardo Leo) loses his university job in Rome due to cutbacks, he recruits six other brilliant but underemployed friends to join him in the designer-drug business.

A segment of 9 X 10 NINETY, drawn from Italian historical footage in the Luce Archives, begins the program. Director Francesco Munzi(BLACK SOULS) will introduce the first feature.

Double Feature: Los Angeles Premiere!
BEAUTIFUL THINGS (LE COSE BELLE), 2013, Pirata M. C., Parallelo 41, Point Film, Bianca Film, Ipotesi Cinema, 88 min. Dirs. Agostino Ferrente, Giovanni Piperno.

In Naples, time doesn't exist. This is a popular belief, a superstition, a good luck charm, a trick, a song. In Naples, you spend your time waiting and then, all of a sudden, you spend it just remembering. So will the beautiful things arrive? Or have they already happened? This Nastro d'Argento awarded documentary follows four people, whose lives in 1999 Naples were more hopeful than they are in the capital today. In Italian with English subtitles.

Aspiring writer Davide Bias (Riccardo Scamarcio) looks with disdain at his father’s career penning B-movie screenplays. But his dad had begun an autobiographical novel before his death, and Davide’s attempts to complete it become increasingly obsessive. In the edgy lead role, Scamarcio leaves a strong impression, as does Sharon Stone, who plays a publisher with a personal connection to the unfinished book. Best Screenplay winner at the Montréal World Film Festival.

A segment of 9 X 10 NINETY, drawn from Italian historical footage in the Luce Archives, begins the program. Introduction by BEAUTIFUL THINGS directors Agostino Ferrente and Giovanni Piperno.

Like its 2011 predecessor, LIFE IN A DAY, this documentary distills hundreds of YouTube videos shot during a 24-hour period to capture the rhythms and occurrences of a typical day. Here the focus is on Saturday, October 26, 2013 in Italy, and the footage ranges from the mundane to the magical, with plenty of striking Italian scenery (as in the eruption of Mount Etna). Executive produced by Ridley Scott.

Filmed in the Finibus Terrae in locations dear to director Edoardo Winspeare - Giuliano di Lecce, Corsano, Tricase and other areas in Salento - and acted by non-professional actors (director Winspeare’s wife, Celeste Casciaro, plays the lead), QUIET BLISS is the story of four women from the same family in a small town during the economic recession. The shutdown of their small business and the repossession of their house ruin everything, including family ties. The only way out is to move to the country, work the land and live by trading their products. This forced choice leads the main characters to reconsider their lives and relationships. Berlin International Film Festival 2014 official selection, and a Nastro d'Argento nominee for Best Direction

A segment of 9 X 10 NINETY, drawn from Italian historical footage in the Luce Archives, begins the program.