05/02/2009

Italian films at the Berlinale are being preceded by a controversy concerning festival director Dieter Kosslick, who in an interview in Germany daily Die Welt spoke of a crisis in Italian arthouse cinema, with the exception of Gomorrah [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Domenico Procacci
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Matteo Garrone
film profile]. In January, Riccardo Tozzi, president of the producers of ANICA, in a exchange of correspondence with Kosslick, wrote that Italian producers had no desire to send their films to Berlin because "our films always receive a cold and sarcastic reception from German critics".

Thus, Italians in and out of competition are mostly present as co-producers: of French director François Ozon’s Ricky [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Teodora Film) and the films of master filmmakers Costa-Gavras (Eden is West [+see also:
trailer
film profile], starring Riccardo Scamarcio) and Theo Angelopoulos (The Dust of Time [+see also:
trailer
film profile]).

The fully Italian productions are instead to be found in the sidebar Culinary Cinema, of which Kosslick is particularly fond and which looks at subjects such as the sustainability of development and the new economy. Ermanno Olmi’s Terra Madre [+see also:
trailer
film profile] will have its world premiere in the Berlinale special progamme on February 6.

Produced by the Cineteca of Bologna and I.T.C. Movie, Olmi’s investigative documentary is based on an event held for the third consecutive year in Turin, in October 2008, the Terra Madre Slow Food Festival, at which over 6,000 farmers, breeders, fishermen and cooks from 130 countries gathered to discuss food.

Culinary Cinema is also hosting Gianni Di Gregorio’s surprise hit of 2008, Mid-August Lunch [+see also:
trailer
film profile], and Haiti Chérie [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Claudio Del Punta.

(Translated from Italian)