/ Director
Paolo Virzì
/ Cast
Silvio Orlando, Sabrina Ferilli, Ennio Fantastichini , Laura Morante, Piero Natoli, Antonella Ponziani .
/ Music
Battista Lena
/ Producer
Vittorio e Rita Cecchi Gori
/ Length
100 mins.
/ Year
1995
/ Sponsor
Date :: Saturday, October 17
Time :: 7:00 pm
Location :: MoPA in Balboa Park
Cost :: $5.00 donation suggested
Language :: Italian with English subtitles
Tickets :: On location
Ferie d'agosto
August Vacation
With Ferie d’agosto Virzì tackles another classic of Italian popular cinema, a sub-genre called “commedia di villeggiatura” or “balneare,” a sort of vacation comedy set at the seaside. Even in this case there are illustrious antecedents in Dino Risi’s Il sorpasso (1962) and L’ombrellone (1965), and Luciano Emmer’s Domenica d’agosto (1950). Ferie d’agosto’s ensemble cast includes some of the best actors of their generation: Silvio Orlando, Ennio Fantastichini, Piero Natoli, Laura Morante, Sabrina Ferrilli. The premises of the film are a recipe for laughter and food for thoughts on the anthropological habits of the average Italian family. On the island of Ventotene, off the coast of Naples, during a summer vacation collide two opposite, but not too different, types of families, one leftist, the other right leaning. Politics and ideological divergences being a characteristic trait of Italians, who love to revel in endless debates, the film has plenty to comment on the period that showed the rise of Silvio Berlusconi as a political figure, and the birth of two opposing coalitions in Parliament.
With the Virzì retrospective SDIFF celebrates the tradition of commedia all’italiana offering its audience the opportunity to enjoy a series of rare films that shed new light on aspects and characters of Italian society relevant to understand Italy’s recent history, faults and virtues.
Virzì has fun teasing out the worst flaws of each camp in matters of family relations, racism, sexism, individual choices, environmental issues, and human behavior in general. All actors play “types” in the way they dress, talk, and interact with one another. Virzì tries not to take sides but to point out the extremes in each position. If you ever wondered how Italians behave on holidays, how they can display the worst and the best at once, how they can cry and then laugh at themselves without losing their passion for life and its bittersweet taste, you will not want to miss this film. Ferie d’agosto won a David di Donatello for Best Film in 1996.
The San Diego Italian Film Festival kicks off its 2009 annual festival with a retrospective of Paolo Virzì’s films. Born in Livorno in 1964, Virzì is one of the most talented directors working in Italy today and is considered the heir of the commedia all’italiana, a popular genre in Italian cinema that features characters in some kind of life crisis. As viewers we tend to identify with the protagonists even when their choices are questionable because we cannot help but love their flaws. Popular during the 1960s economic boom, commedia all’italiana intended to make viewers laugh while also making us think hard about the pressing social issues of the moment. Among the actors that made this genre famous were Alberto Sordi, Ugo Tognazzi, Vittorio Gassman and Nino Manfredi, all representatives of a particular Italian social “type.”
After graduating from the Centro sperimentale di cinematografia in Rome in 1987, Virzì embraced commedia all’italiana and its “civil passion” in a series of films that give voice to everyday working people struggling to find their place in a society in utter transition and in social, economic and political turmoil. SDIFF will present four of Virzì’s early films, all absolutely not to be missed for their quality and rarity in the US: La bella vita (Living It Up, 1994), Ferie d’agosto (August Vacation, 1995), Ovosodo (Hardboiled Egg, 1997), My Name is Tanino (2002).
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