The New Italian Cinema Film Festival

Director Donatella Maiorca’s Sea Purple (Viola di mare, 2009)

[San Francisco] The grand finale of the New Italian Cinema Festival takes place today and tomorrow at the Embarcadero Center Cinema. The climax of the festival delivers the following absolutely brilliant productions;

Different From Whom?
In a northern Italian city, a gay-rights campaigner vies to be mayor in a conservative town. Paired with a conservative female running mate, he surprisingly ends up in bed with her, complicating his political aspirations and romantic life.

Sea Purple
In 19th-century Sicily, a young woman who reveals her love for her female best friend is locked away in a cellar until her father determines a potential way for them both to get what they want.

A House in the Clouds
A young jazz musician and his older brother track down their irresponsible and self-absorbed father who is now living in Marrakesh, and attempt to reclaim the family home and come to terms with their absent parent.

Lecture 21
Alessandro Baricco’s impressionistic, visually adventurous dramatization of a lecture questioning Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony confidently joins other innovative films about music such as The Red Violin and 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould.

Vincere
A powerful political dramatization conceived as a grand opera, Marco Bellocchio’s latest masterpiece details the ill-fated life of Benito Mussolini’s mistress and their son.

The Details

Event: New Italian Cinema Film Festival
When: Tonight through Sunday.
Where: Embarcadero Center Cinema, San Francisco
Tickets: $10-$12.50
Website: www.sffs.org