6 May 2022
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
Magic of Italian Film and Culture to be celebrated in Ireland
New Italian Cinema Events (N.I.C.E.) will hold the Italian Film Festival in Ireland for the first time. The upcoming N.I.C.E Italian Film Festival will be visiting Ireland for the first time in the Festival’s 30 year history.
The Festival will take place from the 18th to the 22nd of May. A double preview launch will take place in Dublin on 18th May at UCD Cinema and Cineworld before moving to the Gate Cinema in Cork from 19th May to 22nd May. The Opening Night film is the movie ‘Perfect Strangers’, a film which has been remade in more than 20 countries, and will be shown in Dublin before moving to the Gate Cinema in Cork.
The N.I.C.E. Film Festival reaches Ireland after a long and complex journey starting from its origins to exploring paths of new cinema and working with new talent and authors and new trends. This festival seeks to promote Italian film internationally. Among the films that will be shown are “Ennio” by Giuseppe Tornatore exploring the life of Maestro Ennio Morricone, and some of the best first works of talented Italian and international young directors.
The programme has a mix of dramatic films that tell stories of social distress, related to problems inherent in the world of crime and corruption, or to more personal spheres such as adolescent and female growth. There are also comedies that, although they are funny, are played on the edge of an irony that highlights the social difficulties of today’s world, the phenomenon of immigration, sexual diversity, the various ways and styles of life.
Organisers of the festival say that discovering new talent is paramount to the festival and the festival helps to ensure that Italian filmmakers can be appreciated both at home and abroad, by telling stories with different techniques and methods, sometimes easily but also with great capacity of convincing, the difficult problems of our society.
N.I.C.E Festival Artistic Director, Viviana Del Bianco said: “The 2022 edition is particularly important thanks to the significant and increasingly strong collaboration with local authorities and institutions, the MiC-Ministry of Culture, the Tuscany Region, and the City of Florence. The Festival is a tribute to the tradition that looks to the future, and that has always celebrated the commitment to innovation and diversity.”
Italian Institute of Culture Director, Marco Gioacchini said: “My knowledge and enjoyment of the first in a long series of N.I.C.E. Festivals in the world began in 2010 when I had the opportunity to view a vast number of great movies, premiers and works by acclaimed directors, masterfully selected and capably organised by Viviana Del Bianco and her team. Today, twelve years on, I am delighted and honoured to launch the very first N.I.C.E. Italian Film Festival Ireland in Cork, with a preview in Dublin. For a long while now, we have tried to establish a regular and prestigious film event in the form of an Italian Film Festival. Many prominent academic and cultural figures, who represent Italy in Ireland, have contributed greatly, over the years, to the success of this project by organising festivals, film clubs and public events with the participation of directors and actors. The existing interest and exceptional contributions have been crucial for the realisation of this first N.I.C.E. Italian Film Festival Ireland.”
There are many people and institutions involved in the Festival such as the Florence N.I.C.E., the Gate Cinema in Cork, Cineworld in Dublin, University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin and the staff of the Italian Institute of Culture.
