Saturday, April 8, 2017, at 7:00 pm, the Performing Arts Center, located at 2500 Kennedy Boulevard in Union City NJ, will host the U.S. premiere of Ameluk (www.ameluk.it), an independent film by director, actor and author Mimmo Mancini. Filmed in the Southern Italian region of Apulia in 2013, and shown in Italian theaters in 2015, the movie won the Grand Prize “In the Spirit of Faith” at the XVII edition of the Religion Today Film Festival, an international festival of cinema, religion and society in Trento, Italy in 2014.

The film was also selected for presentation at the Jewish Film Festival in Jerusalem in 2014, and during the 39th edition of the Montreal World Film Festival in Canada in 2016. Mimmo Mancini will be in attendance and will meet the public before the show.

The event was organized by New Jersey Senator and Union City Mayor, the Honorable Brian P. Stack, and the Board of Commissioners, in particular Mr. Lucio P. Fernandez, artistic director of the NoHu, the North Hudson International Short Film Festival.

“All this happened thanks to my meeting a film editor, an American who adores Italy: Mauro De Trizio,” says the Apulian director. “I was in New York in 2011 and decided to utilize my visit to prepare a promotional trailer for the movie that I could use back in Italy to raise the funds needed for filming. A great friendship was born between Mauro and me and we kept in contact. In 2015, without my knowledge, Mauro submitted one of my short films entitled U Su’ (The Deaf) to the NoHu, and it won two prizes: best film and best actor. I was in Rome, where I live, so I sent –with immense pleasure and little advance notice– a representative from my New Jersey-based immediate family to accept the awards. As the artistic director of the NoHu, Lucio Fernandez, wanted to learn more about my works, Mauro, again, presented my movie Ameluk. And here I am, in front of an American audience for the first time. I hope that this event can bring a little of Italy to all the Italians and Italian-Americans present in the theatre. But, above all, I hope that this modest project of mine can bring viewers of all races and religions to laugh and reflect on current and serious issues such as immigration, marginalization and religious tolerance.”