Cinema Piemonte on the Streets of San Francisco

In a few weeks the Associazione Piemontesi nel Mondo of Northern California will be screening (gratis!) a series of films set in the Piedmont region of Italy. They’re showing Cabiria,whose crane shots, marvelous in any era, are downright astonishing for 1914; I Compagni (The Organizer), with Marcello Mastorianni in a somewhat unusual role for an actor who is better known as a Latin lover; Dopo Mezzanotte (After Midnight), a recent film that harkens back to earlier moments in film history; and, my favorite, Riso amaro (Bitter Rice), directed by Giuseppe De Santis in 1949.