A “big, fat” European weekend

06/03/2008

Almost all the films hitting screens tomorrow are European (at least in part), with most of the Italian titles taking advantage of the deadline for being able to compete for the David di Donatello awards.

There are so many that Cesare Petrillo and Vieri Razzini of Teodora Film decided to push back to next week the release Peter Del Monte’s In Your Hands (see news), initially set for this weekend. “The market for arthouse cinema is too small, it’s better to wait. We’ll aim for next year’s awards,” say the distributors.

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The biggest release of the weekend will be the Filmauro-distributed Grande grosso e… Verdone [+see also:
trailer
film profile] ("Big, Fat and...Verdone", see news), on 835 screens. The new episodic film by Carlo Verdone is a variation on the theme of his historical characters (and hits), from Un sacco bello to Viaggi di nozze.

Salvatore Mereu’s Sonetàula [+see also:
trailer
film profile] will have a smaller print run. After premiering in the Panorama section of the Berlinale, the film is being distributed by Lucky Red on 25 screens in Sardinian and subtitled in Italian.

Revolver will release Alfredo Arciero’s Family Game (see article) on only one screen in Florence, and from next week in other regional capitals as well.

Two Italian documentaries are also coming out, among the most anticipated of the season and both screened at the latest Turin Film Festival: Vogliamo anche le rose [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Alina Marazzi (Mikado, see news), a historical portrait of feminism featuring narration by Anita Caprioli, Teresa Saponangelo and Valentina Carnelutti; and Biùtiful Cauntri, a dramatic look at the environmental disaster in the Campania region, directed by Esmeralda Calabria, Andrea D’Ambrosio and Peppe Ruggiero and distributed by Lumière & Co.

The only foreign titles of the week are the French/Belgian Odette Toulemonde [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news), the film debut by writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (Videa-CDE) and animated film Happily N’Ever After by Paul J. Bolger and Yvette Kaplan (DNC), co-produced with Germany’s BAF Berlin Animation Film and BFC Berliner Film Companie.