by Daniel Eagan

Starting December 3, New York's Museum of Modern Art spotlights Italian cinema with two film series. "Italian Film, 21st-Century Style: A Tribute to Rai Cinema" features nine movies from the country's most significant studio. "Antonio Pietrangeli: A Retrospective" looks at an underappreciated director whose career stretched from neorealism to pop.

According to Antonio Monda, a film professor at New York University and one of the organizers of "Italian Film, 21st Century Style," Rai—Radiotelevisione italiana, Italy's public television—began financing movies in the 1970s. "Over the past thirty years, they have produced the best of the best," he says. "Just a few of their filmmakers include Bernardo Bertolucci, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Federico Fellini, Ermanno Olmi, Nanni Moretti, Matteo Garrone. Really, the best of the best."

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Source: http://www.filmjournal.com/