The so-called Italian weekend at the Oktoberfest is over, now the people of Munich can look longingly towards Italy again. You don’t necessarily have to drive over the Brenner Pass: the festival “Cinema! Italia!” starts on October 5th in the Theatiner cinema. Six feature films from and about Italy will be shown; they cannot otherwise be seen in German cinemas. The opening is the tragicomedy “Grazie Ragazzi” (“Is it all just theater?”) about an actor who is supposed to lead a theater workshop in a prison. This story is not entirely new, it is based on the experiences of the Swede Jan Jönson, and was made into a film three years ago with the French star Kad Merad.
The thriller “Notte fantasma” (“Ghost Night”) was shown at the Venice festival. It goes to Rome for one night, a teenager and a supposed cop wander through the streets of the eternal city. “Il bambino nascosto” (“The Hidden Child”) also screened in Venice. In this drama, Silvio Orlando plays a lonely music professor in Naples who has to save a ten-year-old boy. Paola Randi’s comedy “Beata te” (“The Archangel and I”) strikes a fairytale-like tone, in which a single woman and a man posing as the Archangel Gabriel meet.
Italian cinema is diverse; in his coming-of-age film “Margini” (“On the Edge”), Niccolò Falsetti tells the story of three friends from Tuscany who play in a punk band and dream of a big breakthrough. The films mentioned are relatively new; they were made in the last two years. As a homage to Anna Magnani, the Theatiner is showing Pasolini’s 1962 film “Mamma Roma”, in which the actress, who died 50 years ago, plays a prostitute who wants to build a new life for herself.
Cinema! Italy!Thursday, October 5th, to Wednesday, October 18th, Theatiner, Theatinerstraße 32