From October 12 to 15, India will host “Italian Screen: New Italian Cinema in India,” the first Festival dedicated to Italian cinema to take place simultaneously in four cities (New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Kolkata).
At the center of Italian Screens, there will be six movies nominated for the David di Donatello, an award created by the Italian Film Academy in 1955. Italian Screens will be inaugurated on October 12 in New Delhi by the special screening – in the gardens of the Italian Embassy – of Ennio by Giuseppe Tornatore, about legendary film composer Ennio Morricone.
All screenings will take place simultaneously, until October 15, at the PVR cinemas in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, and the historic New Empire cinema in Calcutta, in the presence of institutional representatives and some of the most famous artists of Indian cinema.
The films on the program, which will be screened in Italian with English subtitles, include 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 broader project to deepen cultural relations between Italy and India, organized by the Cinecittà Studios to bring Bollywood closer and to encourage opportunities for meetings between producers, distributors, and creatives from both countries.
“Italian Screens in India is a moment of celebration of the extraordinary Nation branding Campaign “be IT”. The “be IT” campaign, launched in November last year, promotes a new way of representing Italian excellence and Made in Italy. This occasion with Cinecittà and our Diplomatic-Consular Network is an important opportunity to present ourselves to the Indian public,” explained Ambassador Lorenzo Angeloni, Director General for Country Promotion at the Italian Foreign Ministry.
“The Italian Film Academy –,” said President and Artistic Director Piera Detassis, “is honored to be a partner of the Italian Screens initiative. Today, it is crucial for us to support our talents and spread our film culture and its cultural specificity abroad. I believe that Italian Screens best interprets one of the Academy’s important missions, namely educating new audiences, under the banner of the widest inclusion.”
Italian Screens is an opportunity to introduce the protagonists of Italian cinema abroad, to create an audience that appreciates the great productions of the moment, but also to present to local operators the best of what the Italian audiovisual system can offer to stimulate co-productions.
The event is also an important networking opportunity to enable industry operators to get in touch with those who can best illustrate the program of incentives at a national and regional level to support production for those shooting in Italy.
After India, the busy calendar of Italian Screens events will include Los Angeles, from 31 October to 2 November, Sao Paulo from 4 November, and Berlin from 8 to 13 November. Later, Italian Screens will continue until 2023 in Buenos Aires, Washington, New York, Seoul, Tel Aviv, and Bogotà.
