by Nickolas Marinelli   Ask any average American who Ninetto Davoli is, and you'll likely get a blank stare. Even fans of vintage foreign films may have a hard time remembering where they've heard that name before. But ask an Italian or Italian film fan, and you'll get the kind of reaction usually reserved for superstars who began their care...

by Jeannine Guilyard   When I first contacted screenwriter Francesca Serafini for an interview, I had no idea the incredible day I would have translating her words. Not only did I appreciate the information in her responses to my questions, but I also appreciated her poetic way of writing them.   She has her craft down to a science. I...

by Alessia Gargiulo   The cinematographic era of Italian Neorealism marked a revolutionary turning point. Director Otto Preminger said that the history of cinema is divided into two parts, before Rome Open City, and after it.    A new language was created by a handful of directors and screenwriters in Italy in the immediate post-...

Abel Ferrara&rsquos new film Pasolini has picked up an Italian distributor, the Rome-based Europictures. The company was smitten on the film after seeing only a short promo in Cannes. Pasolini, clocking in at 86 minutes, is Ferrara&rsquos look at the controversial Italian director and writer&rsquos last day on earth: Nov. 2, 1975. &nbs...

A lecture by Manuele Gragnolati (University of Oxford) In ENGLISH. Focussing on the connection between textuality, subjectivity and politics, this paper explores analogies and differences in the late works by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Elsa Morante.   The aesthetics of both authors resists linearity and allows for the articulation of paradoxic...

When Flavia Laviosa was a young woman in Bari, Italy, she had a front-row seat for a golden age of artistry in Italian cinema. “I grew up at a time when education became free and accessible to everyone, and I had easy access to film screenings,” says Laviosa, senior lecturer in Italian Studies.   “Those were the years, into the ’70s, when th...

An exhibition of over 100 images that explores the experience of photographer Roberto Villa (in attendance at the opening) on the set of The Arabian Nights (1974) by Pier Paolo Pasolini, documenting the director's work in the Middle East (Yemen and Iran,) but also offering one of the last portraits of a land that was about to become a war zone. &n...

Ogni autunno Il Museum of Fine Arts di Houston (MFAH) ospita una rassegna cinematografica per onorare il cinema italiano, con pellicole restaurate provenienti dai leggendari archivi di Cinecittà presentate al pubblico in partenariato con il Consolato Generale d'Italia a Houston, l'Istituto Italiano di Cultura a Los Angeles e grazie alla generosità...

The Museum of Fine Arts of Houston (MFAH) will run a series of screenings of the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini, within the context of its 8th annual homage to Italian cinema.   The series is presented in partnership with the Consulate General of Houston and the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles and thanks to the generosity of sponsors...

Titles by Italian authors Elena Ferrante and the late Primo Levi have both made it into the top 100 books of the year compiled by the New York Times, it emerged on Monday.   The books in question - The Story of the Lost Child by the elusive Ferrante (a pseudonym), which is the fourth and final volume in her quartet of Neapolitan novels, and...