NICE Film Festival Presented at the Italian Cultural Institute

The New Italian Cinema Events (NICE) is one of the most prominent Italian film events organized outside of Italy.

The festival, at its 20th edition, showcases each year around the world Italian films made by young directors at their first or second experience. With screenings and events held in locations such as New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Saint Petersburg and Amsterdam, this is an important opportunity for new Italian promising artists to have their talent recognized outside the borders of their home country.

This year the festival opens in New York on November 15, with the premiere international screening of Matrimoni e Altri Disastri (Weddings and Other Disasters). The event will be attended also by lead actor Fabio Volo and director Nina Di Majo.

Director Di Majo, however, was also present on November 12 at the Italian Cultural Institute, together with NICE director Viviana del Bianco. They held a conference to illustrate the Festival and the movie.

The movies competing this year are: La Doppia Ora (The Double Hour) by Giuseppe Capotondi, Meno Male Che Ci Sei (Lucky to have you) by Luis Prieto, Alza la Testa (Raise Your Head) by Alessandro Angelini, Matrimoni e Altri Disastri, Dieci Inverni (Ten Winters) by Valerio Mieli, Scontro di Civiltà per un Ascensore in Piazza Vittorio (Clash of Civilization over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio) by Isotta Toso and 18 Anni Dopo (18 years later) by Edoardo di Leo.

As director del Bianco told us, the peculiarity of this itinerant event is that there is no jury. Rather, the public chooses the winner. The official screenings for the States are scheduled in Seattle and San Francisco, and during these the audience will be provided with ballot sheets to cast their vote.

 

In the past years, New York used to be a prominent location for the festival, but budget issues forced the organizing committee to tune down this part of the contest.

This however is just an exception, most definitely not the new rule: it is already decided that next year New York will again be a central location for the contest.

Highlights of the initiative will be the final night in San Francisco, with the announcement of the winner, and the closing night in Florence.

Riccardo Viale, director of the Italian Cultural Institute (ICI), opened the conference underlining his organization’s strong involvement in media and cinema: “[ICI] is much involved in the media, documentaries and movies. We are thinking about establishing a new prize for emerging movie directors. We were also discussing a project halfway between social science and movies: a documentary about emerging hot issues of real people with a comparison between the States and Italy. The issues found would be discussed by social scientists”.