Nanni Moretti will be at Metrograph this week to discuss several of his films
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
October 18-21
212-660-0312
metrograph.com
Italian writer, director, and actor Nanni Moretti has been making uniquely personal films for more than forty years, comedies and dramas that meld fiction and nonfiction with sociopolitical and religious undertones in which he often plays a major role, as himself or his alter ego, Michele Apicella. An international favorite, Moretti has won major awards at Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and other film festivals as well as numerous David di Donatello trophies, the Italian Oscars. He makes one feature approximately every five years, in addition to many shorts, so each full-length work is a cinematic event. Metrograph is honoring the sixty-four-year-old Moretti by screening five of his works, ranging from 1989’s Palombella Rossa, in which Moretti plays a Communist politician who gets amnesia, to 2006’s Il Caimano, with Moretti as a producer making a film about Silvio Berlusconi; Moretti will participate in a Q&A following the screening. He will also be on hand to introduce 1998’s Aprile, 1993’s Caro Diario, and 2001’s The Son’s Room; the latter two will be followed by Q&As with Moretti as well. This brief series is a real treat, a rare opportunity to not only catch these wonderful films but to see Moretti discussing his craft.
Doctors can’t help Nanni Moretti find out what’s wrong with him in charming Caro Diario
CARO DIARIO (DEAR DIARY) (Nanni Moretti, 1993)
Friday, October 20, 7:00
metrograph.com
Nanni Moretti’s highly personal and very funny memoir, Caro Diario, is simply wonderful; Moretti plays himself, a filmmaker roaming around Rome on his Vespa and riding into charming little vignettes, including bumping into Jennifer Beals, with whom he’s obsessed. Moretti then travels to the Eolie Islands with his friend Gerardo (Renato Carpentieri), and more comic adventures ensue. The mood changes when Moretti comes down with a rash that doctor after doctor diagnoses differently. This international hit earned Moretti nominations and awards galore, including being named Best Director at the David di Donatello Awards and at Cannes.
Nanni Moretti’s deeply personal The Son’s Room, part of Metrograph retrospective, looks at family tragedy
THE SON’S ROOM (LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO) (Nanni Moretti, 2001)
Saturday, October 21, 4:00
metrograph.com
Winner of the Palme D’Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, The Son’s Room is a moving look at life, love, and loss. Italian writer-director-actor Nanni Moretti stars as Giovanni, a psychiatrist who can’t control the dissolution of his family following a terrible tragedy. Moretti (Caro Diario, Ecce Bombo) has made a heart-wrenching work that will always be compared with Todd Field’s powerful In the Bedroom, which came out the same year. Both films examine family tragedy with honesty and believability, but whereas the family in In the Bedroom considers revenge, the father in The Son’s Room, achingly played by Moretti, can’t get over wrongly blaming himself, while his wife (Laura Morante, who won the Best Actress award at Cannes for the role) seeks solace in her son’s girlfriend (Sofia Vigliar), whom she had not known about. Moretti is a deeply personal filmmaker; at times you will feel like you are watching a documentary, and it will break your heart.