The last day to NICE

The fifteenth edition of New Italian Cinema Event has just come to the end, and thanks to the profitable collaboration between the San Francisco Film Society and the Italian Cultural Institute, NICE has recorded a great edition with an extraordinary success of audience.

Who has had the pleasure to see one of the Italian movies in program, can surely understand what I am saying. From Sunday, November 13th, to Sunday, November 20th, many good Italian movies have had the chance to be known by a different audience, the American one. We also had the opportunity to interview the special guest of the Festival, the director Daniele Luchetti, (you can find the interview here), and to see all the movies in program.

On Sunday November 20th the closing night started at 6:30 with the first screening of Nanni Moretti’ s film "Habemus Papam" with a huge positive response by the audience. It is an ironic movie about the Vatican traditions, which tells about the meeting between the Pope in crisis and an atheist psychologist played by Nanni Moretti himself.

After the movie we attended the City of Florence awards ceremony, won by Giorgia Cecere, with “The first assignment”, a low budget movie that tells a true story, inspired by the story of the director’s parents, set in 1950 in Puglia, starring Isabella Ragonese (also seen in “Our Life” and “One life, maybe two”), young and talented Italian actress. The film has deserved the award thanks to its simplicity and at the same time for its story and the aim to portrait an independent woman fighting against the restrictions placed against her.

At the end, we joined the celebration of the City of Florence Awards at Fior d’Italia, one of America’s oldest Italian restaurants. We hope you enjoyed this edition of New Italian Cinema Event and we wish you will enjoy next ones!

Valentina Calabrese
contributor