A film festival celebrating its 25th anniversary is bound to be something special. So there was grande esuberanza (great exuberance) when the 2024 Italian Film Festival opened at the Palace Norton Street Cinema in Sydney on September 18. The prosecco and rosé prosecco flowed, patrons were given an Italian-themed snack box and an ice-cream to take into the cinema, where neatly packaged boxes of popcorn were adorning the arm rests. The gift bags that had been placed on every seat were heavy with generosity.
The real treat of the night, though, was that actress and singer Margherita Vicario had come out from Italy to present the opening night film, Gloria! which she wrote and directed. Although it’s set in a women’s refuge in Venice in 1800, the soundtrack – which is glorious indeed, especially in surround sound – is an enthralling blend of the classical music of the period and modern beats.
The sisterhood strikes back
“It’s a kind of fable but it’s set in real places where this institution for orphans and abandoned women were raised to play in the orchestra of the church,” Vicario told the opening night audience (though the music had to play second fiddle to laborious housework). “They were not allowed to play as professionals, they were not allowed to play in public, they could only play in the church for the glory of God. We wasted a lot of talent in this way.
“The idea of the movie came to me when I was thinking ‘how is it possible that I can’t name one single famous female composer in the history of music. It’s quite strange because of course they existed, and so I just invented this story, and I put all my creativity together with the creativity of what we will never know because they weren’t in the history books.
The result is a marvellous film, which Vicario sums up thus: “It’s about creativity, it’s about music, it’s about friendship and it’s about sisterhood.”
Back to the beginnings
Patrons of festival hosts Palace Cinemas will also be raising their wine glasses to toast the movie that opened the first Italian Film Festival ever in Australia in the year 2000, Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips, pictured above). I’m looking forward to seeing it again (yes, My Five Romances was at the inaugural Sydney festival all those years ago). It’s a wonderfully uplifting film about turning a humdrum life into one of gioia (joy).
Bread and Tulips won in an astounding nine categories in Italy’s equivalent of the Oscars, the 2000 David Di Donatello Awards: Best film, Best director, Best actress, Best actor, Best cinematography, Best screenplay, Best sound, Best supporting actor and Best supporting actress.
Look who’s back at IFF 2024
The bread and tulips are still youthfully fresh comparted to The Godfather Part II, whose 50th anniversary screening in “a lavish 4K restoration” is another highlight of the 2024 Italian Film Festival. The film won six Oscars including best film and best picture at the 1974 Academy Awards.
Recognising that our bladders are a lot weaker in 2024 than they were 50 years ago, and won’t hold out for the film’s astounding 202 minutes (almost three-and-a-half hours!) Palace Cinemas will screen it with a 10-minute intermission.
The 2025 Italian Film Festival runs till mid or late October in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Byron Bay. M5R