Articles by: N.l.

  • Events: Reports

    Eccentric and Visionary, the Films of Carmelo Bene

    The Italian Cultural Institute and Anthology Film Archives are extremely proud to present Carmelo Bene: a Film Retrospective (April 26-29); including all five feature films (as well as a couple shorts) directed by the vanguard filmmaker, actor, and playwright Carmelo Bene, one of the greatest figures in Italian avant-garde culture.
     

    Born in Campi Salentina, just north of Lecce, in 1937, “he made his debut in '59 with Caligola by Camus, directed by Alberto Ruggiero; however, the following year he offered a work entirely in the first person with Spettacolo Majakovskij, and background music by Bussotti.

    In the following decade, the great talent of the actor-director had the chance to fully unfold in legendary shows: his virulent, aggressive and disrespectful - to the point of outrage - re-readings of Pinocchio by Collodi (1961), Shakespeare's Hamlet (1961), Edward II by Marlowe (1963), Salomè by Oscar Wilde (1964), Manon by Prévost (1964), Hamlet by Shakespeare-Laforgue (1967) caused a real uproar, and almost unanimous slating from the critics - except the discerning Ennio Flaiano - and shocked reactions from the public,” writes.

    Through his career Bene “succeeded in parodying the Italian histrionic acting tradition, as well as being its apotheosis. In the theater his model was Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, while the moderns he respected most in literature and painting were Joyce and Francis Bacon. In the cinema he had little sympathy for film-making after Buster Keaton and Eisenstein,” John Francis Lane wrote in The Guardian.
     

    The enfant terrible of Italian stage and screen, Bene turned his attention to film making for a brief period between 1968 and 1973, producing a small but unforgettable body of film works.

    “The most notable of which was the first, based on his novel and play Nostra Signora Dei Turchi (Our Lady Of The Turks), inspired by his childhood memories of Otranto, the port south of Lecce. On stage, and also on screen, he created a phantasmagorical kaleidoscope of sound and color, expressing a nightmare vision of what happened in August 1480 when the Turkish fleet invaded Otranto and massacred 800 of the inhabitants. It was a remarkable example of avant-garde cinema, even if the Sight and Sound critic reported that 'it made no sense whatever,'” John Francis Lane continued.
     

    His last three features are radical adaptations (or reworkings) of Hamlet, Oscar Wilde's Salomé, and Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. Allhis films are visionary, flamboyant, wildly excessive, and definitely unrestrained.
     

    “Though Bene's film is more Mediterranean and less cerebral, his closest parallel in cinema is Peter Greenaway. However, though its one homoerotic scene probably would not impress a gay audience, this and other Bene films could also figure well beside the works of Kenneth Anger or Derek Jarman, not to mention Pasolini (in whose Oedipus Rex of 1967 he played Creon),” John Francis Lane continued.
     

    It's been decades since these works have been screened all together, making this an opportunity not to be missed. This retrospective has been organized in collaboration with the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale. All films are in Italian with projected English subtitles.

    Upcoming Screenings at the Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue New York, NY 10003

    Capricci

    1969, 89 minutes, 35mm.

    "This is one of [Bene's] masterpieces. ... Capricci - melodramatic, wildly expressionist, and opaque - includes a bloody, endless fight between two men brandishing hammer and sickle, poisoned Christ paintings that kill the beholder, impotent sex by a lecherous old man coughing his lungs out over a tantalizing nude woman, killings, car crashes, explosions, and raging fires, all accompanied by operatic arias, constantly moving cameras, and violent montage. Vulgar black humor, eroticism, and anarchic action mingle in this swirl of color and incessant motion - a tour de force of expressionist filmmaking." -Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art.

    Screened with:

    Il barocco leccese (1968, 6 minutes, 35mm)

    This is a short documentary on the Basilica di Santa Croce in Lecce. Bene is the narrator. He declared he shot it in order to get funding for his Our Lady of the Turks.

    -Thursday, April 26 at 6:45 and Saturday, April 28 at 9:00.

    Don Giovanni

    1970, 75 minutes, 35mm.

    "Although this Don Giovanni includes snippets of the music from Mozart's opera of the same name, the film is not a staging of the opera but rather a radical re-working of the Don Juan legend. After a prologue that alludes to the many conquests of Don Juan, the rest of the film concentrates on a peculiar kind of love triangle, in which the mother of a young girl competes with the Don for her daughter's attention. Bene's Don Giovanni could be considered a 'queer' film, mounting as it does a satiric attack on several of the institutions of modern sexuality: binary gender difference, the nuclear family, the machismo of male sexual prowess, and the Oedipal complex itself." - Harvard Film Archive.

    -Thursday, April 26 at 9:15 and Saturday, April 28 at 7:00.

    Salomé

    1972, 76 minutes, 35mm.

    Owes less to Oscar Wilde than to Bene's life-long infatuation with Italian pop art in all its gaudy excessiveness. All traces of 'reality' have been banished from this near-indescribable romp through Bene's cinematic universe. Highlighted by exuberantly tacky set design, eye-burning colors, and ever-changing illumination, in this film disorientation is the norm. This is certainly the only version of Wilde's text to feature a man nailing himself to a flashing neon cross, or in which the eponymous vixen literally peels the skin from the face of King Herod as an act of seduction, precipitating his - and the film's - final descent into utter madness.

    -Friday, April 27 at 7:00 and Sunday, April 29 at 4:00.

    One Hamlet Less

    1973, 70 minutes, 35mm.

    "Bene's version of Hamlet celebrates the power and beauty of Shakespeare's theatricality, while attempting to strip the piece of the morbid piety that has come to cling to it over the centuries. The film radically condenses most of the action of the play and further deforms the text: lines are repeated; original passages inserted; the 'To be or not to be' soliloquy is not delivered by Hamlet but read - in an extremely abbreviated version - by Horatio; Polonius quotes Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. This film then is perhaps the best example of what Bene called his aesthetic/strategy of contestation. Bene also incorporates a critique of the play's sexual politics: the male characters sport elaborate and even ludicrous costumes, while the women wear outfits that reveal more than they cover." - Harvard Film Archive

    Screened with:

    Hermitage (1968, 24 minutes, 35mm)

    Short film shot in the Hotel Hermitage in Rome. It was defined by Bene as a 'camera rehearsal,' a technical rehearsal for a forthcoming film Our Lady of the Turks. “The unrestrained body of Carmelo Bene transforms itself into a cinematic body with a series of performances (sleeping, dressing, writing, looking in the mirror), which lose all resemblance with reality.”

    -Friday, April 27 at 9:00 and Sunday, April 29 at 6:00.

     

    Our Lady of the Turks

    1968, 142 minutes, 16mm-to-35mm.

    The film is presented here in a 142-minute version; newly restored by the Cineteca Nazionale from the original negatives, this version predates the shorter, 126-minute edit created for submission to the Mostra Internazionale del Cinema di Venezia in 1968.
     

    Bene adapted his own novel for his debut feature, in which he stars as a writer possessed with visions by turns outrageous, violent, religious, and sexual. Stylistically baroque, disjunctive, and aggressively nonlinear, Our Lady of the Turks is a sui generis classic of absurdist cinema.

    "With Capricci, this is the most hallucinatory and original masterpiece yet created by Bene; an explosion of neo-expressionism (with surrealist overtones) unequalled on the contemporary screen. ... [Alberto] Moravia refers to Bene's work as 'desecration by dissociation, pushed beyond the point of schizophrenic delirium' and to the over-all effect of this film as that of a grotesque, delirious lynching. How else [to] 'explain' scenes such as Bene, a knight in full armor, stubbornly attempting to make love to a nude woman (still involved with dishes) to the accompaniment of great clanking;... [or] driven insane perhaps by obsessions and visions, permitting himself to be raped by an eager Madonna who afterwards smokes in bed while reading magazines, halo in place." -Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art.

    -Saturday, April 28 at 4:00 and Sunday, April 29 at 8:15.
  • Facts & Stories

    Unemployed for Rent

    He is  from Sardinia and  he is looking for a job. His way to find it is rather different than usual. People send resumes, he travels around Italy carrying a sign “Disoccupato in Affitto” (Unemployed for Rent).

    His name is Pietro Mereu and the Italian news are talking about it incessantly. TG2, TG3, Sky News, Mediaset Tgcom 24, Vanity Fair, Libero, Il Fatto Quotidiano, the International Film Guide are just a few of the national and international outlets that have told his story.

    The story of a guy, one of millions, who is suffering from the economic crisis that has struck Italy, and the rest of Europe, and who is fighting hard to find a job. As he travels to nine Italian cities, Rome, Florence, Lecce, Cagliari, Genoa, Bologna, Verona, Naples and Milan, he shoots a documentary, financed by his parents and his business partner Luca Merloni, (75 minutes running time) that is at the same time an investigation on the job situation in Italy, a sarcastic provocation and a challenge with himself.

    As he carries his sign, people react with a smile but also with bitter considerations on the current dramatic situation Italians live in.

    We got in touch by chance, through a mutual friend, and his story hit me hard as so much of what has happened to him has happened to me (just to mention an example, employers who don't pay) and so many I know.

    What is your professional background?

    I have worked in television for about 5 years. I worked in production and in the writing department. I  also have experience in public relations and event organization. Right before becoming unemployed I collaborated with a film distribution company, but they never paid me.

    Through the years I did various things though, I was a sales rep, a real estate agent, whatever I could find although my dream, obviously, is film making. I have shot a documentary before this one, a film on foreign opera singers in Italy, and I would like to shoot more personal documentaries and even comedies.

    How did you get the idea to shoot this documentary and how did you select the cities you visited?

    Before the documentary I had the idea to put myself up for sale in a home furnishing store. I lived there for a month. Then I discussed a further development of my story with my co-writer, and actual cameraman who shot the documentary and followed me all over Italy, Luca Merloni. The cities were selected because of actual needs, meaning those are cities where I have friends who could take me in. By coincidence they are spread all over the country, north, center and south, so that helps me give a more complete picture.

    How did people react when they saw you? Any positive or negative memories?

    People are really taken aback when they first see me. They think it's a joke, but when they realize that is not the case there is plenty of solidarity. A journalist in Milan tried to give me 20 euros. I refused. In Bologna a woman gave me 5 euros, but I gave them to a homeless around the corner who needed them more than I. In Genoa, a city know for being “cheap,” they bought me drinks. In Naples, a city where the economic/job crisis is felt even more, they were surprised to see someone who was not local living in such a desperate situation. All memories are positive, I can really say this trip was an amazing experience, one of the best of my life.

    Did you get any job offers? If so, did you accept any?

    In Lecce I worked as a bartender in a pretty fancy bar. It lasted one night only but I became friends with Anselmo, an Italian guy, who after having worked abroad for years, has returned home to train bartenders.

    Was there ever anybody who did not realize you are looking for work and actually thought you were begging for money?

    Yes, there were plenty of people who thought I was begging for money, but I never accepted any. A priest suggested I go to Caritas (a catholic charity), but I told him I am not at that stage yet.

    Why, do you think this documentary should reach the US as well?

    I think Americans should be aware of the current economic state in Italy. This will help them understand that we all are on the same boat. My work is not that different from the work of Michael Moore (whom I wish to meet one day) and Matt Spurlock, with nuances of the work of Nanny Loi, a Sardinian director who loved to provoke.

    How's the situation in Italy now?

    If you want a job in Italy you have to be extremely lucky or come from a family that has a good professional network and so that can help you. The situation is incredibly hard, especially for the young generations. They cannot find anything. There are some manual jobs available but Italians don't take them as the level of exploitation is high. The phenomenon that's on the rise right now is that of the esodato. The term was coined in 2011 after the social security reform to describe those workers without a job and without any government subsidy. Their age range goes from 50 to 65, and they basically have nothing until they turn 67, when they are eligible for social security.
  • Facts & Stories

    Fading Gigolo: Woody Allen Returns to Acting in Film by John Turturro

    The last time Woody Allen appeared in someone else's film was back in 2000, when he starred in Alfonso Arau's comedy Picking Up the Pieces and did an uncredited cameo in Peter Askin and Douglas McGrath's Company Man.
     

    The last time he cast himself in his own film was back in 2006 for Scoop and soon he will appear onscreen in his next film, Nero Fiddled, which SPC will release on June 22, 2012. The film, shot on location in Rome, perceived to have been a modern-day take on Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, is a romantic comedy starring, along Mr. Allen himself, Roberto Benigni, Antonio Albanese, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ornella Muti, Penelope Cruz, Judy Davis, Alec Baldwin and Jesse Eisenberg.
     

    The film will be in Italian theaters on April 20, 2012 with the title A Roma con amore (In Rome with Love) and Allen will be starring opposite Judy Davis as a couple whose daughter is about to marry an Italian. The director has so described his storyline to the press “I can't play the love interest anymore, which is tremendously frustrating. My wife and myself go to Rome because our daughter is going to marry an Italian boy that she met there, and we go over to meet him and meet his family, and what ensues. The film is very broadly funny.”

    Allen, who is coming off an Oscar win for writing Sony Pictures Classics' Midnight in Paris, has now been cast in John Turturro's newest film, Fading Gigolo. i-Italy had the chance to meet Mr. Turturro at a Gala organized by the Scuola d'Italia Guglielmo Marconi for its anniversary and the director did not confirm or deny the news, he simply admitted they are “talking about it.”

     “Based on a script by Turturro, who will also direct, the story is about two penniless best friends who are growing old and become gigolos to make some money. Allen begins to pimp out Turturro, but things go wrong when the folks in the Hasidic Jewish community where they live begin to suspect them (although they start using the pseudonyms Virgil and Bongo) and Turturro falls for a Jewish widow. The actress playing the widow has not been cat yet, but deals have been made with Sofia Vergara and Sharon Stone. Variety reports that “Stone will play Allen's dermatologist who hires Turturro to sleep with her, while Vergara is expected to play another wealthy client who's bored with her marriage and wants to have a threesome with Turturro and Stone.”

    “It’s a pretty outlandish premise, but it’s not hard to see why Allen signed on. The guy has an impeccable sense of humor and pairing him with Turturro seems like a perfect match,” Adam Chitwood wrote in for Collider.com while NME Magazine writes “Allen rarely appears in films he is not directing, so his casting is considered a coup for Turturro.”

    According to Indiewire “casting Allen is a smart bid to brand Fading Gigolo to the smart comedy crowd. Italian-American Turturro has delivered four indie films to date, all of them well-reviewed, none of them commercial, from the superb semi-autobiographical Mac and Cannes entry Illuminata to outrageously funny musical Romance & Cigarettes, which starred Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet and James Gandolfini and fell victim to the end of United Artists. Romance & Cigarettes was such a hit in Italy that financeers hired Turturro to direct a doc, Passione, showcasing the music, old and new, of Naples.”

    Passione also was a great success, a film filmmaker Magazine describes as “A musical adventure that chronicles the world of contemporary Neopolitan music from top to bottom, a rare film in our cynical times that embraces large gestures, outsized emotions and the lure of melodrama and sentimentality.”

    Turturro played a writer in Allen's 1986 pic Hannah and Her Sisters, and the two were featured in  Company Man. Production of Fading Gigolo is still to be decided, Mr. Turturro mentioned the spring or the fall. No matter when, the people of New York City will find out firsthand as the city will welcome production.
  • Facts & Stories

    Titanic Centenary, A Tragedy to Remember

    “Passengers fought over lifeboats, a mother crawled up almost vertical corridors in pitch blackness with her daughter, and elderly couples sobbed as icy decks slipped under water. A harrowing picture is emerging of the chaotic evacuation of more than 4,000 people from the luxury cruise ship that sank into the Mediterranean off the coast of Tuscany...” John Hooper and Tracy McVeigh of the Guardian wrote on January 14, 2012 about the Costa Concordia disaster that has given Italy a bad name.
     

    In the same piece a passenger is reported saying “Have you seen Titanic? That's exactly what itwas like,” said Valerie Ananias, 31, a schoolteacher from Los Angeles who was with her sister and parents. “They all had dark red bruises from crawling up corridors that were nearly vertical.”

    Just a few weeks after that, the Costa Allegra, which belongs to Costa Crociere, the company that owns the doomed Costa Concordia, ran into trouble after an engine-room fire knocked out its power and it had to be towed to the Seychelles. 1049 passengers were left without working toilets, running water or air conditioning in a region of the Indian Ocean where pirates are known to prowl for days.
     

    Despite the disastrous start to the year and the consequent bad publicity, Costa Crociere keeps cruising and the people in charge are optimistic about the future of the cruise ship sector, which has grown in recent years, in contrast to other tourism sectors.  
     

    Now, two months later, the spotlight leaves Costa Crociere and is on the centenary of the most famous and infamous maritime tragedy; the sinking of the Titanic, the passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg during its voyage from the south coast of England to New York City. The sinking of the Titanic caused the death of 1,517, there was a total of 2200 people total, in one of the deadliest maritime disasters in history.
     

    The countdown to the anniversary started a while back with the opening of the Twitter account @TitanicRealTime where you can follow the epic journey with day-by-day and minute-by-minute tweets as if from on board the ship itself. Yet the most awaited events have to do with the movies and TV. The 3D version of James Cameron's classic is about to be released along with two documentaries produced by the National Geographic Channel and the Italian original series Titanic Blood&Steel, that narrates the prequel of that tragedy.
     

    Cameron's masterpiece, featuring young Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet, is now fifteen years old (indeed it was released in 1997) and it will be in theaters worldwide in its 3D version on April 6th. The date was chosen to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the ship setting sail (April 10).
     

    The movie is the second-highest-grossing film of all time, behind Cameron's Avatar and won 11 Academy Awards total, including best director and best picture. Today Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Lightstorm Entertainment are still betting on its magic, and the conversion to 3D format, executed by 300 people Overseen by Cameron, who wrote, directed and produced the movie and his Lightstorm producing partner Jon Landau, who also produced, cost 18 million dollars. 
     

    “There's a whole generation that's never seen Titanic as it was meant to be seen, on the big screen,” Cameron said to the Hollywood Reporter. “And this will be Titanic as you've never seen it before, digitally remastered at 4K and painstakingly converted to 3D. With the emotional power intact and the images more powerful than ever, this will be an epic experience for fans and newcomers alike.”
     

    We are taken back to the frozen waters of the North Atlantic Ocean by the National Geographic Society and the National Geographic Channel with two different documentaries that will be released on the National Geographic Channel and in Italy on Sky Channel 403. The first Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron (to be aired on April 8), will show the celebrated director at work on his own forensic research on the shipwreck. Cameron, who has taken part to over 30 submarine expeditions to explore the relict up close, has brought together a team of engineers, naval architects and historians to solve the mystery of how a ship that was considered unsinkable actually sunk. The second documentary Save The Titanic (to be aired on April 9), focuses on the story of Bob Ballard, the explorer who, in 1985 found the relict, and now is fighting against looters.
     

    Ballard starts at the shipyard in Northern Ireland, where the ship was built and reconstructs its entire story along with that of its passengers up to the moment of the tragedy. The explorer renovates his commitment to safeguard the relict as it is constantly menaced by nature, tourists and unscrupulous recovery teams. “If the Titanic is not protected and there's no guard on duty, it will get stripped,” Ballard said. “It'll get stripped until all the jewels have been taken off the old lady's body.”
     

    In Italy, Rai 1, will release, most likely on April 14, the series Titanic Blood&Steel. The international super cast includes Chris Noth of Sex and the City, Kevin Zagers of Gossip Girl, Massimo Ghini and Alessandra Mastronardi, who will soon be seen in Woody Allen's Nero Fiddled. Based on an idea of the director of Rai Fiction, Fabrizio Del Noce, and designed for the international market, the series is divided into twelve episodes and is directed by the Irish, Ciaran Donnelly. It tells the epic story of the construction of the Titanic through the personal tales of the numerous people who worked on a ship that symbolized the future, richness and power but it actually is remembered as the icon of failure, one of the most   tragic tragedies of the modern world.
  • Facts & Stories

    Spotlight on the Songs of the 62nd Festival di Sanremo

    All bets are on: with only two nights left to Saturday night's final, singers Emma Marrone and Francesco Renga are the people's favorite and rumored winners of the latest edition, the 62nd, of Italy's celebrated music festival, Sanremo.

    Non è l'inferno (It's not hell) was written for Emma Marrone by Kekko (Francesco Silvestre)the singer of the Italian pop rock group Modà. It is a song denouncing injustice as it talks about a man who has dedicated his life and given blood to serve his country but he can barely make ends meet by the end of the month. Overall the song is slightly melodramatic, which is a characteristic of both Emma's and Moda's style.
     

    Francesco Renga's La tua bellezza (Your beauty) is a declaration of love for women's beauty. A previous winner, Renga, is very charismatic and performs this catchy song with great abandon.

    Both Nina Zilli and Noemi, no matter what position they will end at, are receiving a great response form the public and the critics. They present two songs of great quality. Per sempre (Forever) is a song that shows a new side of Nina Zilli, known to the public for making music with black influences. Her song has been compared to those Mina used to sing in the 1960's that gives great room to the orchestra and creates a chic, vintage mood. Critics already see it as a big hit. Noemi's Sono solo parole (They're just words) is a love song written by Italian singer Fabrizio Moro that focuses on the inability to communicate. The couple Gigi D'Alessio-Loredana Bertè has presented Respirare (Breathing), a passionate, funky song that sounds like an old one by Miss Bertè, In alto mare (On the high seas) (1980).
     

    The group Matia Bazar, who joined the cast at the very last minute and has participated to the festival 11 times, sings Sei tu (It's you), a love song that is touches many women, those who fall in love with a man who hurts them, who does not deserve them. Irene Fornaciari's Il mio grande mistero (My great mystery) is a mixture of black music and kitsch rock. Poetic and mysterious, it is a reflection on the difficulty of grasping the meaning of life.
     

    Among the singers/songwriters we find Samuele Bersani, known to be a rather reserved talent, who presents Un pallone (A ball), a metaphor in music to denounce Italy's tough current situation. Ex-rocker Eugenio Finardi, leaves his old transgressions behind and in E tu lo chiami Dio (You call him God) he sings about his religious doubts and questions. Lucio Dalla, paired with Pierdavide Carone, young talent at his first experience in the BIG category (the BIG category is comprised of singers that already are well known in the business) sing Nanì, the story of a prostitute and the man who loves her.
     

    Arisa, a former winner of the young talents category, sings La notte (The night), a songwhere a lonely woman looks inwardly at herself and her life. At night is when thoughts and memories invade her mind, and the pain of lost love becomes unbearable. Chiara Civello sings Al posto del mondo (Replacing the world). She is considered  one of the best talents that have emerged in the last few years, due to her unique jazzy style and impeccable professionalism. The song has been mildly welcomed by the public and it has brought on a few complaints as it was already performed in 2010 by singer Daniele Magro. Indeed, according to the rules, all songs presented at Sanremo must be brand new. Written by Civello herself it was used by Magro in an audition to participate to the new talents section called Sanremo Social. The issues has been quickly settled by the festival's organization. Marlene Kuntz's Canzone per un figlio (Song for my son) is a letter a father writes to his son. “if you know what you're doing you will be able to reach happiness, if you don't know what you want unhappiness will be incomprehensible, if you really know, happiness will be within you,” they sing.
     

    Dolcenera's Ci vediamo a casa (See you at home), focuses on a real life problem: the difficulty of starting a family with the person you love. Having a happy life together is a dream that seems impossible to realize especially in the historic moment we are living in.
     
  • Life & People

    Italian “Christmas”: Religious & Pagan

    The tradition of putting together a crèche started in the 17th and 18th centuries in several Italian cities, but theNeapolitan presepe is perhaps the most famous all over the world. San Gregorio Armeno street, in the heart of Naples' old town, is filled with tiny artisan workshops making nativity scenes and "terra cotta" figurines. These include Jesus, Madonna, and the shepherds, but also caricatured politicians and entertainment stars. Berlusconi, Obama, and Lady Gaga figured prominently in the past years, Mario Monti (the new Prime Minister of Italy, as well as Minister of Economy and Finance) this year. The reason is that originally the artisans used the presepe to offer a popular chronicle (and often a critique) of public life in Naples, summarizing major events and exposing its protagonists.

    Rome is instead home to another tradition, that of zampognari (pipers), folk musicians who get their name from the instrument they play (zampogne, or bagpipes). They come down from the mountains around the city, wearing traditional costumes, and perform Christmas songs in the streets. Historically the zampognari were poor peasants and shepherds who toured the cities during the holidays asking for food and money.

    Tombola is the forebear of the American Bingo—but in Italy (especially in the South) it is a traditional Christmas family game played usually around the dinner table. As each number is called out of a rotating drum or a box, they are typically announced by a little rhyme, the most famous of which are in Neapolitan dialect.

    These rhymes may refer to religious themes (for instance, #33 will be "The Years of Christ,") but many have a lay origin and even a clear teasing-meaning, which make everybody laugh in a rather politically incorrect manner. These include, among others: #21 'A femmena annura (The naked woman); #28 'E zizze (Women's breasts); #23 'O scemo (The idiot); and #48 - 'O muorto che pparla (Dead Man Talking).

    On market stalls all over the country, kids also find stockings, of all shapes and sizes, with the image, or figure of an old, ugly lady. This lady is called Befana. She is not a witch, even though she flies on a broom, and, on the night of January 5th and the early hours of January 6th, brings to all good kids a stocking filled with candy and small toys, while those who did not behave, get a stocking filled with black coal.

    The origins of Befana are rooted in the ancient magical traditions of Italy's popular culture, but with the passing of time she came to combine both folkloric and religious mythologies, so that Befana’s treats parallel the Magi’s gifts brought to baby Jesus.

    The day of Befana also marks the end of the holiday season. This is when all Christmas Trees are taken down and the last day of vacation for kids who, sadly, get ready to go back to school.

  • Dining in & out: Articles & Reviews

    Holiday Toasting with the Wines of Asti

    Toast the holidays with the wines of Asti, brought to New York City by Cantina Sociale di Canelli.

     

    Located between the Langhe and Monferrato, in the Asti region, an area with a strong tradition of winemaking, home to some of Italy's finest red wines, plus some famous whites, the Cantina Sociale di Canelli has been producing the classic wines of Piedmont since 1933.
     

    Working with absolute respect for tradition and integrating the latest innovations, Cantina Socialedi Canelli brings together the production and resources of over 200 vine-growers. Their ample range of products includes the most prestigious appellation wines of the Asti area, including light, fresh and fruity whites, sweet and dry sparkling wines and world class reds obtained from the grapes of mature vines.

    Cantina Sociale di Canelli, in partnership with the Italian Trade Commission of New York, has organized a series of Wine Pairing Dinners, for the trade and press, in some of the city’s top Italian restaurants.

    On December 12 at 1.00 PM, lunch is served at Serafina, where journalist and sommelier Anthony Giglio will present the wines and show how to pair them with the food. On the 13th, at the same time, Giglio will do a similar presentation at Tony May’s SD26. On the 13th there will be another event in the evening, at 6.30 PM, at The Leopard at des Artistes featuring wine expert and teacher Kevin Zraly. On the 14th at lunchtime it is the turn of Zraly again who will be presenting at Le Cirque while at dinnertime, he will be at Barbetta Restaurant. Everything will come to an end on the 15th at the Italian Trade Commission with a special holiday reception.

    The wines that will be featured at these events are:

    Barbera d’Asti D.O.C.G. Albarelle, made with 100% Barbera grapes. This wine is deep ruby red, with a full and dry body. Its bouquet is ethereal and pleasant. It must be served at room temperature, and it pairs well with red meats, cheeses and game.

    Piemonte D.O.C. Chardonnay is a light straw yellow wine with green nuances. It is velvety and balanced on the palate, and has a light floral bouquet. It must be served at 10 ºC. It is ideal for light dishes, appetizers, fresh water fish and snacks. It also is an excellent aperitif.

    Duebollicine Pinot Chardonnay, Vino Spumante Brut, is a deep straw yellow blend of Pinot and Chardonnay that is dry and fruity and with a delicate floral bouquet. It is characterized by the perfect balance between white and red grapes. It must be served at a temperature of 8-10 ºC. In addition to being an excellent aperitif wine, it pairs well with refined dishes.

    Bricco Sant’Antonio Moscato d’Asti D.O.C.G. is sweet, aromatic, with the typical bouquet of just harvested grapes. It must be served at a temperature of 8-10 ºC. Naturally sweet, it pairs well with desserts and fruit.

    Cantina Sociale di Canelli has two labels: Vignaioli di Canelli and Antica Cantina. Under the former we find Asti D.O.C.G., Brachetto Piemonte D.O.C.G., Moscato d’Asti D.O.C.G., and Barbera del Monferrato D.O.C., while under the latter we find Bricco Sant’Antonio Moscato D.O.C.G., Dolcetto d’Asti D.O.C. and Pinot Chardonnay Brut.

     
  • Facts & Stories

    Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata is the New Minister of Foreign Affairs


    No politicians have been included in Mario Monti’s new administration which consists of distinguished academics, financial experts and diplomats. Their task is to implement a package of austerity measures and public spending cuts which were passed by parliament in the last days of Berlusconi’s government. Their task is to rescue Italy.

     
    The newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs is Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, who moves from the prestigious role of Ambassador of Italy to the United States in Washington to the top of Farnesina. His Excellency has been called to be part of Mario Monti’s executive administration, succeeding Franco Frattini, Italy's Foreign Minister in the Berlusconi Cabinet. For Terzi, his return to the Farnesina as a minister represents the completion of a long diplomatic career where he has played key roles in some of the major appointments of Italian diplomacy.
     
    Born in Bergamo in 1946, Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata got into diplomacy in 1973 after having earned a law degree at the University of Milan, specializing in international law.
     
    He assumed his responsibilities as Ambassador of Italy to the United States on Oct. 1, 2009. Before this appointment Terzi’s most recent overseas posting was as Ambassador of Italy to Israel (2002-04). According to The Washington Diplomat, “he previously served as Italy’s permanent representative to the United Nations, where he also headed the Italian Delegation to the Security Council, which Italy had joined as nonpermanent member, for the 2007-08 terms. Security Council reform, Afghanistan, humanitarian intervention and protection of civilians in armed conflicts were among the major issues that Ambassador Terzi focused on during his presence on the council. He had served in New York on a prior occasion, from 1993 to 1998, as first counselor for political affairs and later as minister and deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.


    Prior to his latest New York assignment, Ambassador Terzi served in the Foreign Ministry in Rome as deputy secretary-general, director-general for multilateral political affairs and human rights, and political director. During those four years, his responsibilities included major international security and political issues, especially in the framework of the U.N. Security Council, the U.N. General Assembly, and the U.N. Council on Human Rights, as well as the Council of the European Union, NATO, the G-8, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He also advised the Foreign Minister on international security, focusing on the Western Balkans, the Middle East, Afghanistan, East Africa, nuclear proliferation, terrorism and human rights. During his initial two years at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Ambassador Terzi served as a protocol officer.”


    Before then (in 1975), he was posted as First Secretary for Political Affairs at the Italian Embassy in Paris. This was followed by a return to Rome (in 1978) as a special assistant to the secretary-general, and an appointment in Canada to serve as economic and commercial counselor. He served in Canada for almost five years, a period of important growth in economic and high-tech cooperation between Italy and Canada.
     
    Ambassador Terzi then returned to Rome (in 1987) to serve first at the Department for Economic Affairs, focusing on high technology exchange, and later as head of one of the Offices of the Department of Personnel and Human Resources. His following foreign assignment was to NATO in Brussels, where he was political adviser to the Italian Mission to the North Atlantic Council in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, German reunification, and the first Gulf War.
  • Facts & Stories

    All About Apple

    It is official. We have confirmation from Cupertino: with over 7.000 pieces, the biggest Apple museum in the world is in Italy. It all started in a basement and today, while the world still cries for Steve Jobs’ death, it is waiting to change its home and relocate to the University of Savona.

    The precious collection, called “All About Apple,” is, at the moment, packed in cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked and set up but there still are some “bureaucratic affairs  and financial issues that need to be sorted out,” Alessio Ferraro, the IT tech who has founded the museum has said. What makes this collection unique is that all the machines, some dating back to the seventies, can be powered on and work perfectly.

    It all started in 2002, with a few devices left behind after the closing of Briano Computer.  Ferraro was joined by William Ghisolfo and other friends in his new adventure. Then, in 2005 a phone call surprised the staff. Brett Murray, senior manager at Apple,  called to say he wanted to send them a “Welcome Package” from Apple Computers. but that was not all, he even invited them all to go to California. It was Murray himself who told the guys theirs was the biggest Apple museum in the world.

    With the passing of time and the increasing number of machines, the museum’s first home, the closed down lab of a middle school, started to be a bit too small.

    That’s what brought the necessity of a better fit place, something definitely larger. The new space, at the Palazzo del Comando, in the University of Savona, should have opened in September but they are still waiting. Ferraro cannot hide being “worried as it is taking a long time.”

    The museum’s staff hopes to start working by the end of the year and to inaugurate the new place in 2012. A date that, Ferraro fears, cannot really be met. A university campus would be the ideal home especially for incrementing IT research but “as things are right now, we have no certainties and we might have to find another situation.”

    Meanwhile on the museum’s site there is a visual homage to Steve Jobs, a real inspiration for many, and even this Italian project.

  • Life & People

    Introducing J-Italy

    Over two hundred people attended the presentation Jewish Treasures of the Italian Regions at Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò, where Riccardo Strano, director of ENIT (Italian Government Tourist Board), Natalia Indrimi, executive director of Centro Primo Levi, Jonathan Wajskol, owner of designwajskol and Francesco Spagnolo, professor of the University of California, Berkeley, introduced the new portal J-Italy (www.j-italy.org).

     

    J-Italy, conceived by Centro Primo Levi in collaboration with ENIT and UCEI (The Union of Italian Jewish Communities) and designed by Jonathan Wajskol, provides a dynamic guide to both historical and contemporary Jewish Italy, allowing viewers to explore, at their own pace, the cultural treasures of the most ancient Diaspora community in the West. Region by region, it highlights both famous and lesser known sites thereby presenting a three-dimensional panorama of a complex history of migrations, persecutions, prosperity and achievement.

    Geographic as well as cultural itineraries bring forth the connections and interactions between Italian Judaism, Italian society and the world at large. J-ITALY is designed for English-speaking tourists, students and all those interested in a comprehensive view of the variety of Jewish experiences in Italy across history. From the Alps all the way to Sicily the Italian Jewish experience spans over twenty centuries with a remarkable tradition of diversity among its regional components.

     
    The aim of the portal is to build on the wealth of information selected from a variety of sources - books, archives, organizations and institutions - that make up the heterogeneous world of Italian Judaism. J-ITALY brings together resources previously not available in one location, providing a journey of constant discovery for those who navigate it.
     
    According to Riccardo Strano “J-Italy is a project of great cultural impact. We created a sort of cultural and touristic bridge to showcase Jewish treasures in Italy by means of a virtual tour. Navigating the web site, international travelers as well as anyone interested will learn about each Italian region, and the vivid and tangible history of the Jewish Communities that have lived there uninterruptedly for 20 centuries. With J-Italy we would like to extend travelers an invitation to enhance their knowledge of a Jewish Italy, encourage them to visit museums and synagogues, experience the contemporary life style of the Italian Jewish population and enjoy the flavor of their delicious cuisine. J-Italy is a formidable promotional tool geared towards individuals as well as travel professionals (agents, tour operators and travel writers) to increase their knowledge of Italian Jewish heritage.”
     
    “Every Italian region has a vast Jewish heritage,” Natalia Indrimi said, “and often we have been contacted, through ENIT, by individual regions in need to organize something here in New York. Through the years we have realized that this requires a lot of effort and it is difficult to create something that is everlasting. The idea of Centro Primo Levi is to create a cultural interface that is solid and reusable. We want other centers and cultural organizations to use it too. It has to be a platform for any kind of promotion. For example, recently the inscriptions in the Venosa catacombs in Basilicata were decoded. It is difficult to have access to this type of information without a platform whose purpose is to bring Jewish culture to an American readership.”
     
    Two regions, Marche and Puglia, were the first to be completed on the portal and the two that were presented at Casa Italiana. Professor Spagnolo presented their musical history, as music, as well as other cultural aspects of life in Puglia and local folklore are intertwined with Jewish history. “From a cultural point of view, Jewish sites in Puglia have great significance,” Silvia Godelli. Assessore alla Cultura e al Turismo for the Regione Puglia said, “They are a proof and a reminder of a Jewish presence in this region which lasted approximately 1500 years, and after a long interruption is now surprisingly coming back to life, albeit in very small numbers.” Godelli is referring to the Jewish resurgence in the city of Trani where, unprecedented in Europe, the ancient Jewish community is being revived by recent converts. “As far as tourism is a concerned, Jewish sites appeal mostly to motivated individuals (many of them American Jews), fascinated by the possibility to trace the places where one of the most ancient Jewish communities in the Mediterranean once flourished.”
     
    Viewers can explore Jewish Italy through location, period and typology, “The paths are many,” Natalia Indrimi added, “yet the story is one, a complex history of migrations, persecutions, prosperity and achievement.”

Pages