Actress Jasmine Trinca and writer Sandro Veronesi are two of the guests at the Italian Film Festival in Lisbon in April, in a program that also marks the 50th anniversary of the April Revolution, it was announced today.
The Italian Film Festival, presented today by the Il Sorpasso Association, is scheduled from April 12 to 21 in Lisbon and opens with the premiere of the film “We still have tomorrow”, the first feature film by director and actress Paola Cortellesi, which was a box office success in Italy and “addresses the role of women in democracy”.
This year’s guests include actress and director Jasmine Trinca, who in 2023 won the jury prize at the Italian Film Festival with the film “Marcel!” and who will now be in Lisbon for a double presentation: the film “La Nouvelle Femme” by Léa Todorov, in which she plays the pedagogue Maria Montessori, and the series “La Storia” by Francesca Archibugi.
Actor Riccardo Scamarcio will also be passing through Lisbon for the film “The Shadow of Caravaggio”, directed by Michele Placido, in which he plays the role of the Italian painter.
Eduardo de Angelis’ film “Comandante”, which opened the Venice Film Festival in 2023, is also among the choices of the Italian Film Festival, and the session will feature screenwriter and writer Sandro Veronesi, whose books “O Colibri” and “Caos Calmo” have been published in Portugal.
Among the special sessions scheduled is the documentary “Milano – The Inside Story of Italian Fashion”, by John Maggio, in which actresses Helen Mirren, Sharon Stone and Frances McDormand and fashion designers Tom Ford, Gianni Versace and Giorgio Armani appear, among others.
The Italian Film Festival will also be associated with the 50th anniversary of the April 25, 1974 revolution and mark another April 25, the one that in Italy is considered the day of the end of the Nazi occupation in 1945.
On April 19, the musician Massimo Zamboni, “an inescapable figure in Italian punk”, will present a show in Italian and Portuguese at Cinema São Jorge to reflect on the two symbolic dates.
The Cinemateca Portuguesa will host 11 Italian works, which “aim to reflect on Italy’s democratic achievements and celebrate the values of freedom and resistance”.
Roberto Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City” (1945), Ettore Scola’s “So Friendly We Were” (1974) and Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Conformist” (1970) are some of the films chosen.
The Turin and Fernando Lopes cinemas are hosting the “No Censorship Cycle”, with Italian films that “won over audiences and left an indelible mark on the collective imagination”, namely Ettore Scola’s “Ugly, Filthy and Bad” (1976) and Dario Argento’s “Profondo Rosso” (1975).
The 17th Italian Film Festival ends in Lisbon with the film “Confidenza”, by Daniele Luchetti, based on a work by the author Domenico Starnone.
This year, the Italian Film Festival will be held in more than 15 Portuguese cities until June, including Almada, Alverca, Barreiro, Beja, Funchal, Leiria, Loulé and Sardoal.
The entire program is available at www.festadocinemaitaliano.com.