Grande cinema Italiano!
For its ninth year, Cinema Italiano Festival will come to Queenstown from Monday and is currently screening in Wānaka. Dorothy Browns in Arrowtown and Ruby’s Cinema & Bar in Wanaka are screening a fantastic selection of Italian films. The curated programme combines the best in contemporary Italian cinema with masterpieces from Italy’s rich cinematic traditions, which also provide meaningful insights into society.
Paolo Rotondo is one of the festival organisers. Originally from Italy, he’s been in New Zealand since he was 11 and is now an award-winning director, writer and actor who has been working in the film industry for more than 20 years. He recently shot a short film, Maunga Cassino, in Arrowtown, which will be showing at Dorothy Browns before There’s Still Tomorrow on 4 October.
“It’s entirely in Te Reo Māori and Italian,” Rotondo says. “We came to Arrowtown because it’s the only place in New Zealand we could find that had a super dusty, dry feel and stone buildings that could look like Italy. There was a little Italian restaurant called Terra Mia, and because we were depicting Italy, we got all the catering done by Italians. We tried to work on a set in a Māori and Italian way – it was really fun and beautiful.”
Rotondo, started the festival with his wife, who has also worked in film. He felt there was a gap in the market and has grown it from the initial five cinema screenings to 26 around the country. There are an array of movies to choose from including comedies, dramas, documentaries and romances. Rotondo curates the event and spends time in the leadup watching around 50 films to choose ones he believes are most suited to a Kiwi audience.
“There are a couple of big things that New Zealanders tend to love – they love big Italian comedies, which always surprises me, but I think there’s a warmth to the Italian sense of humour that really appeals. It’s got a long history all the way back from the golden age of cinema. Also, of course, I think visually, in the middle of a New Zealand winter, getting to go to the cinema and being transported to the Mediterranean is a pretty nice little escape.”
There’s not too much you can do these days for the price of a cinema ticket that allows your imagination to run wild and transports you to a different country for a couple of hours. There’s also a ceremony in going to the cinema that makes for a more enjoyable experience than watching a movie from home.
“You’re in a room with 50-150 people cracking up at a joke and it really lifts you. You’re in a room with people having an emotional experience, and the resonance of that emotion lingers.”
The aforementioned There’s Still Tomorrow is one of Rotondo’s highlights of the films showing. It follows the emancipation of an Italian woman after the Second World War and beat out Barbie and Oppenheimer at the Italian box office.
“It’s a beautiful, charming, arty, small film, written, directed and acted in by one lady caked Paola Cortellesi. It’s so beautiful, but it’s got some quite serious themes. In the very Italian style, it’s done with a lot of editing, so it’s both comedy and drama.”
If you’re unsure about heading to a foreign film, Rotondo explains that that’s all part of the fun. It’s not often that you’re able to walk into a cinema having not read any reviews and not knowing what you’re going to get – you’ll have the ability to be fully transported to a different reality.
The 2024 edition of the Italian Film Festival will run until 29 September in Wānaka, and 30 September – 7 October at Dorothy Browns in Arrowtown. To download the full programme and find out more information you can head to italianfilmfestivalnz.com
