“N.I.C.E. (New Italian Cinema Events) [2] turns 21 and it is great to celebrate its birthday at the Italian Cultural Institute of New York [3], the place where it all started. We are here to present new Italian cinema, that never is an easy feat. Making movies in Italy is always difficult for the newcomers, the young talents ... you need sponsors, you need stars... but still, despite major financial limitations, Italian cinema has been evolving and not only under an artistic point of view but also technical. It is appreciated by both national and international audiences, if, only if, they get the chance to see it.”

With these words Viviana del Bianco, director of N.I.C.E., introduced the 21st edition of Italy's most prominent film festivals for films made by young directors at their first or second experience. Cinema, the seventh art, is the cultural medium broadening the horizons of our minds and encouraging our imagination. However it is also a business, a productive industry, providing many people, at best, with work; “a miracle made of art and technique” operating around the world.

In the past 21 years, N.I.C.E. has played a crucial role, as a film institution, in the programming of the new Italian cinema, with a double aim: discovering and promoting new talents through their first and second feature films capable of daring new styles and exploring new themes and, simultaneously, giving visibility and energy to the sounds, images, faces, lines and emotions from back home in the USA (and Russia and China).
 

This year's edition brings to NYC, followed by San Francisco, eight films, films that tackle critical issues, tell stories that are close to reality and denounce corruption and criminality.

“The movies selected to be presented in NYC are all world premiers featuring current stories told with unique artistic voices,” Viviana del Bianco said.

“It is utterly important to celebrate Italian cinema here in the States. Sometimes I miss watching a good movie... cinema is influenced by what happens in life and living is captured in the movies presented at the festival... let's all be grateful to be able to watch these good films,” Consul Lucia Pasqualini added.

A movie like La Nostra Vita, presented at the conference by its director Daniele Luchetti tells the story of a family “where the characters are animated within the background of an anti-glamorous Rome, never wretch, without losing sight of the Italian context, irrevocably oriented towards consumerism, illegal work, cynicism and lack of ethics. A portrait blinking at Italian Neorealism, authentic and precise in the description of attitudes and languages, all drawn out of the observation of reality.”

“It is good to bring movies like this one abroad,” Luchetti said, “We need to show how Italy really is... once I met someone who said to me, ‘I want to meet those Italian women who are all dressed in black and take care of children... I saw them in a movie.’ I had to explain that those women don't exist anymore. They were the women featured in Il Postino, a movie set in the sixties.”

Luchetti had some interesting points on the status of current Italian cinema, as it is “living a rather fortunate season. Italian people are actually going to see domestic movies, (there was a 40% growth of viewers). One point that must be raised is that what is successful in Italy does not travel abroad. Italian audiences enjoy comedies, satires, anything that makes fun of themselves, their disgraces and their lives in general. It would be interesting to see how they would do, as it is difficult to translate humor. Next to this humorous cinema there is what is called “quality” cinema, a more serious form that portrays reality with more serious tones it gives a critical outlook and tackles important issues.”

He then continued to explain that Italy's cinema is helped by the Government and in the latest years there have been cuts to everything that is cultural. Artists in all fields have fought a big fight against it. Because of lack of funding Italian filmmakers have to create ways to make movies spending the least money possible, featuring simple stories with simpler means.”

So unemployment, economic crises, corporate corruption and foreign cultures are just a few of the topics touched by the films that will be presented at the Anthology Film Archives [4] starting tonight, November 10.

For a complete schedule of the screenings: http://www.i-italy.org/18590/21st-return-n-i-c-e-new-italian-cinema-events-nyc [5]