Maverick Modigliani & The best of Italian Cinema 2020

1. Maverick Modigliani

Maverick Modigliani Directed by: Valeria Parisi

Starring: Marc Restellini, Paolo Virzì, Simone Lenzi, Gérard Netter, Antonio Marras, Laura Dinelli, Emilia Philippot, Jacqueline Munck, Klaus Albrecht Schröder
Year: 2020
Film run: 90 ‘

The extraordinary story of an exceptional avant-garde artist Amadeo Modigliani, a great rioter, and an even greater bohemian, whose works balance on the border between primitivism and the Italian Renaissance.

The documentary Maverick Modigliani recalls a hundred years since the death of an artistic genius who transcended all legends and stereotypes. From its roots in Livorno, where the Macchiaioli movement was born, to Paris, the center of modernity, where he clashed with talents of his time, such as Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncuși, to a deep relationship with the muse Jeanne Hébutern. Maverick Modigliani is stunning document.

“When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes”

“It is your duty in life to save your dream.”

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (1884 -1920) was an Italian Jewish painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and figures that were not received well during his lifetime, but later became much sought-after.

Amedeo Modigliani

Painter

2. THE TIES

Directed by: Daniele Luchetti

Cast: Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Adriano Giannini, Linda Caridi, Francesca De Sapio

Year: 2020
Film run: 100′

Naples, early 1980’s. Aldo and Vanda go through a separation after he reveals his affair. Their two young children are torn between their parents, in a whirlwind of resentment. But the ties that keep people together are inescapable, even without love. Now, 30 years later, Aldo and Vanda are still married.

3. EVERYTHING’S GONNA BE ALRIGHT

Directed by: Francesco Bruni

Cast: Kim Rossi Stuart, Lorenza Indovina, Barbara Ronchi, Giuseppe Pambieri, Raffaella Lebboroni, Nicola Nocella, Fotinì Peluso, Tancredi Galli, Elettra Mallaby, Stefano Rossi Giordani, Ninni Bruschetta

Year: 2020
Film run: 101’

Bruno Salvati’s life is in on hold. His films have never been successful and his producer struggles to finance is next project. His wife Anna, whom he recently separated from, already seems to have found another partner. And Bruno also feels an imperfect father for his children Adele and Tito. One day Bruno discovers he has a form of leukemia. He immediately relies on a competent and tenacious hematologist, who guides him on a very tough path to survival.

The first goal is to find a compatible stem cell donor: after a few failed attempts, Bruno begins to be seriously afraid. His father Umberto is therefore forced to reveal a secret from his past which could give a new hope to the man. Bruno and his family embark on an unexpected journey of rebirth, with the hidden awareness that for them “Everything’s gonna be alright”.

4. PADRENOSTRO

Directed by: Claudio Noce

Cast: Pierfrancesco Favino, Barbara Ronchi, Mattia Garaci, Francesco Gheghi, Antonio Gerardi, Francesco Colella, Anna Maria De Luca, Mario Pupella, Lea Favino, Eleonora De Luca, Film run: 121′

Awards:
La Biennale di Venezia 2020: Venezia 77 – Coppa Volpi for Best Actor (Pierfrancesco Favino)

Rome, 1976.

Valerio (Mattia Garaci) is 10 yo kid with a fervent imagination. His life is turned upside down when he witnesses a terrorist commando attempting his father Alfonso (Pierfrancesco Favino). From that moment, fear and a sense of vulnerability mark the feelings of the whole family. During those dramatic days Valerio meets Christian (Francesco Gheghi), a compelling boy slightly older than him. Lonely, rebellious and cheeky, Christian seems to come from nowhere. That encounter, in a summer full of discoveries, will change their lives forever.

5. HIDDEN AWAY

Directed by: Giorgio Diritti

Cast: Elio Germano, Oliver Johann Ewy, Leonardo Carrozzo, Pietro Traldi, Orietta Notari, Andrea Gherpelli, Denis Campitelli, Filippo Marchi, Gianni Fantoni, Paola Lavini, Laura Pizzirani, Maurizio Pagliari, Francesca Manfredini, Daniela Rossi, Mario Perrotta, Paolo Dallasta

Year: 2020
Film run: 120’

Awards: 
Berlinale 2020: Competition – Silver Bear for Best Actor (Elio Germano)
Globi d’Oro 2020: Best Film, Best Cinematography

Toni, the son of an emigrant Italian mother, deported back to Italy from Switzerland where he spent his childhood, lived for years in a shack by the river without ever succumbing to loneliness, the cold or hunger. Meeting the sculptor Renato Marino Mazzacurati was his chance to return to painting, the beginning of a redemption story in which he feels art is the only way to form his identity, a real opportunity to make his name known and loved by the world.

“El Tudesc,” as people called him, was a lonely, scrawny, ugly and often mocked and humiliated man. He became an imaginative artist who painted a fantasy world of tigers, gorillas and jaguars on the banks of the Po. Ligabue’s art is a “fairy tale” from which a wealth of diversity emerges and his work over time has proved to be a gift to collective humanity.

6. THE PREDATORS

Directed by: Pietro Castellitto

Cast: Massimo Popolizio, Manuela Mandracchia, Pietro Castellitto, Giorgio Montanini, Dario Cassini, Anita Caprioli, Marzia Ubaldi, Antonio Gerardi, Nando Paone, Vinicio Marchioni, Claudio Camilli, Liliana Fiorelli, Renato Marchetti, Giulia Petrini, Francesco Borghese

Year: 2020
Film run: 109′
Awards: La Biennale di Venezia 2020: Orizzonti – Award for Best Screenplay

It’s early in the morning, the sea at Ostia is calm. A man knocks at the door of a woman’s house: he is going to sell her a watch. It is early in the morning again when, a few days later, a young assistant professor of philosophy will be left out of the group chosen for the exhumation of Nietzsche’s body. Two grievances. Two apparently incompatible families: the Pavone and the Vismara. 

Bourgeois and intellectual the former, proletarian and Fascist the second. Opposing factions that share the same jungle: Rome. A banal incident will bring the two poles into collision. And the folly of a twenty-five-year-old man will lead to a showdown that reveals everyone has a secret and no one is what they seem. And that we are all predators.

Sources: Ecodelcinema, La Bienale di Venezia, CG Enterteinment, MittelCinema Fest

Trailers: Maverick Modigliani, The Ties, Everithink gonna be alright, Padrenostro, Hidden away, The Predators