New Italian Cinema

San Francisco Film Society celebrates Italy’s freshest film offerings in the New Italian Cinema series at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema. Films new and old from director Ferzan Ozpetek begin the weeklong festival, which focuses on a diverse group of work from some of Italy’s most gifted filmmakers, many appearing in person. Opening Night is Ozpetek’s most recent, ‘Loose Cannons,’ which precedes a party at Cigar Bar & Grill, 850 Montgomery Street. More at sffs.org.

New Italian Cinema

San Francisco Film Society’s New Italian Cinema series wraps up this week at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema. Upcoming films include Giuseppe Capatondi’s thriller ‘The Double Hour’ and Luis Prieto’s heartfelt drama, ‘I Am Glad You Are Here’ (pictured). The Closing Night film is Paolo Virzì’s ‘The First Beautiful Thing’ with a reception at Fior d’Italia, 2237 Mason Street. More at sffs.org.

New Italian Cinema Puts Focus on Ferzan Ozpetek

'When in Rome,' or outside it: NIC offers fresh voices, new locations.

New Italian Cinema Puts Focus on Ferzan Ozpetek

'When in Rome,' or outside it: NIC offers fresh voices, new locations.

New Italian Cinema Puts Focus on Ferzan Ozpetek

'When in Rome,' or outside it: NIC offers fresh voices, new locations.

New Italian Cinema Puts Focus on Ferzan Ozpetek

'When in Rome,' or outside it: NIC offers fresh voices, new locations.

New Italian Cinema Puts Focus on Ferzan Ozpetek

'When in Rome,' or outside it: NIC offers fresh voices, new locations.

New Italian Cinema Puts Focus on Ferzan Ozpetek

'When in Rome,' or outside it: NIC offers fresh voices, new locations.

New Italian Cinema Puts Focus on Ferzan Ozpetek

'When in Rome,' or outside it: NIC offers fresh voices, new locations.

New Italian Cinema Puts Focus on Ferzan Ozpetek

'When in Rome,' or outside it: NIC offers fresh voices, new locations.

New Italian Cinema's Fact, Fiction, Fascination

The 13th New Italian Cinema festival finds the political and personal mixing more frequently than you'd find in any assortment of U.S. narrative films.

New Italian Cinema's Fact, Fiction, Fascination

The 13th New Italian Cinema festival finds the political and personal mixing more frequently than you'd find in any assortment of U.S. narrative films.

The Exiled Ingrid Bergman at PFA

The PFA is offering a rare overview of Bergman's European films in the series, A Woman's Face: Ingrid Bergman in Europe.

'Desert of the Tartars' Saved from Obscurity

The Desert of the Tartars is a story in which the grim certainty that "Nothing will ever happen" is a slow poison that drives men to madness, suicide or other inglorious ends.

Marco Ferreri's Anarchic Filmmaking

Wild man of Italian cinema, Marco Ferreri left many films in need of rediscovery (or simply discovery) since his death in 1997.

SFIFF52: Leone's 'Once Upon a Time in the West'

Once Upon a Time in the West is grand, cynical, lavish and above all huge, Sergio Leone's penchant for the iconically gargantuan (perhaps at the willing expense of relatable human detail) expressed in ultimate form.

SFFS's Inaugural French Cinema Now

The SFFS has added a Gallic counterpart to its long-running New Italian Cinema series.

'Days and Clouds' Finds Changes in the Weather

Economic troubles reveal the true depths of a couple's long-taken-for-granted bond in a film by Italian director Silvio Soldini.

Asia Argento, In Full Flower

Motherhood has supposedly had a slowing-down effect on Asia Argento, though at present evidence points rather wildly to the contrary. Not only does she star in this week’s San Francisco International Film Festival official opener, Catherine Breillat’s costume intrigue The Last Mistress, she also figures heavily in two other SFIFF features. Both are programmed in the culty "Late Show" section: Go Go Tales, Abel Ferrara’s most acclaimed film in years, and The Mother of Tears, a latest horror opus directed by her own fan-idolized gorehound dad Dario Argento. A couple weeks ago yet another vehicle opened commercially, Olivier Assayas’ Boarding Gate, which is entirely dominated by her feverish and highly physical performance.

Conventional logic might suggest all this visibility means it’s "breakthrough" time for Asia Argento, that moment when an actor goes from being a familiar face to a marquee name that can singlehandedly draw folks into the multiplex, or at least the arthouse. (In Europe she’s already quite well-known.) But as her project choices among other things bear out, Argento probably isn’t very interested in becoming a "star" in the conventional sense. In fact, she seems the girl most likely to run from any such fate.

SF Int'l announces its 51st program and year-round screen

The SFIFF announced its 2008 program and the June 13 launch of its year-round programming on one screen at the Sundance Kabuki

SFMOMA's "Nonwestern Westerns" Series

A series of films at SFMOMA present an outsiders take on the outmoded American staple, the Western.

10 Reasons to See "Cinema Piemonte"

The Associazone Piemontesi of Northern California, with the Italian Cultural Institute and Regione Piemonte, presents "Cinema Piemonte," four movies made in that beautiful region.

Pier Paolo Pasolini

S.F.Ôs Italian Cultural Institute is launching an extensive if not quite exhaustive retrospective of Pasolini's features.

Reviews: "Brand Upon the Brain!", "Golden Door"

Brand is no short supply of Guy Maddin's usual firecrackers: apostrophe, hyperbole, and of course, catastrophe.

The Critics and Antonioni

A look at critics' responses to Antonioni through the ages shows there is, and always was, plenty to say about his work.

Cinema, New Italian Style

The relationship between intellectualism and passion, a distinctly Italian concern, propels the 2006 edition of New Italian Cinema.

Cinema, New Italian Style

The relationship between intellectualism and passion, a distinctly Italian concern, propels the 2006 edition of New Italian Cinema.

More Made Men

The List: Lesser remembered and/or excellent Mafia films that might make you an offer you can't refuse.

The Mafia Doc "Excellent Cadavers"

Who knows what the Mafia, or Cosa Nostra as it's called in Sicily, is really like? Marco Turco's really-real chronicle, Excellent Cadavers.

Visconti's Signature Features

The Istituto Italiano di Cultura screens Visconti's signature features, from his 1942 debut Ossessione through 1976's The Innocent, which he died before completing.