The spotlight will be on six films nominated for the David di Donatello, an award instituted by the Academy of Italian Cinema in 1955 with the aim of honouring the best Italian and foreign films released each year. The showcase will be inaugurated on 12 October in New Delhi by the special screening, in the gardens of the Italian Embassy, of Ennio by Giuseppe Tornatore, about the legendary film composer Ennio Morricone.
Ambassador Lorenzo Angeloni, Director General for the Promotion of the Country System (MAECI) said, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has always considered the strategic value of audiovisuals as one of the best ways to portray Made in Italy abroad and promote Italian excellence. We have therefore decided to enhance Italian Screens in India as a celebration of the extraordinary ‘Nation branding be IT’ campaign, with special promotional events relating to screenings in the four Indian cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru. The ‘be IT’ campaign, launched in November last year, promotes with digital and social tools a new way of representing Italian excellence and Made in Italy, and this occasion with Cinecitta and our diplomatic consular network is an important showcase of visibility towards the Indian public.”
All screenings will take place simultaneously, until 15 October, at PVR cinemas in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi and at the historic New Empire cinema in Kolkata, in the presence of the institutions and some of the most famous names in Indian cinema. The films presented, in Italian with English subtitles, are Il Buco by Michelangelo Frammartino, Sulla giostra by Giorgia Cecere, Qui rido io by Mario Martone, L’Arminuta by Giuseppe Bonito and Ariaferma by Leonardo di Costanzo.
The initiative is part of a wider project of deepening cultural relations between Italy and India, organised by Cinecitta for the DGCA of the MiC in order to ensure a rapprochement with Bollywood and to stimulate meeting opportunities between producers, distributors and creatives of both countries.
The Academy of Italian Cinema – David di Donatello Awards, says President and Artistic Director Piera Detassis said, “Honoured to be a partner of the Italian Screens initiative, which emphasises and enhances the work of research, support and selection of the best Italian cinema composed throughout the year and culminating in the night of the David Awards. It is crucial today to support our talents and to spread our film culture and its cultural specificity abroad. Italian Screens appears to best interpret one of the Academy’s important missions: the education of new audiences, in the name of the widest inclusion.”
After India, the busy calendar of appointments of Italian Screens will stop in Los Angeles from 31 October to 2 November, in Sao Paulo from 4 November and in Berlin from 8 to 13 November. Afterwards, the festival will continue around the world until 2023, from Buenos Aires to Washington, New York, Seoul, Tel Aviv and Bogota.
–IANS
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