Italian Film Festival hopes to reel in students

You don’t have to go to Italy to be immersed in Italian language and culture.
Instead, you can go to the 4th Annual New Mexico Italian Film Festival that began on Sunday.

The festival is usually held over the course of one week, with film screenings such as “Gomorrah,” and, “100 Nails,” at multiple theaters around Albuquerque, such as the Guild Cinema. It ends with a closing gala that includes a dinner at Scalo Northern Italian Grill on Feb. 21.

The only problem, Ronaldo Patrizio-Steiner, the festival’s chief organizer said, is getting students to attend.

“It’s been a bit disappointing in the past,” he said. “Maybe they’re just too busy during the week. But I think that anyone interested in language will find something to excite them, and the city as a whole is really embracing it.”

All of the ticket revenue is going directly to UNM Children’s Hospital, Patrizio-Steiner said. Sponsors such as Saggios Restaurant, Scalo, Albuquerque The Magazine, and Local IQ help to support the film festival, he said. The past three Italian Film Festivals in Albuquerque have collectively raised $80,000, and he said he hopes to see the event reach a wider audience.

“I think it could become an international festival,” he said. “I’d like to enlist some other people to make the organization grow. We’ve grown in attendance, but we’ve also grown artistically. We originally used to do only classic movies. Now, most of our movies are contemporary.”

Included in this year’s lineup is the Italian crime film, “Gomorrah,” by Matteo Garrone. It won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. Roberto Benigni’s 2005 “The Tiger and the Snow,” a romantic comedy set amidst the Iraq War, is also playing.

The festival also features a handful of classics. No Italian film festival would be complete without famed director Federico Fellini, whose “The White Sheik” from 1952 will run Saturday. The film showing for the closing gala will be “Boccaccio ‘70” from 1962, a collection of four short films, each directed by an Italian master of cinema including Fellini and the great neorealist, Vittorio de Sica. 

Patrizio-Steiner’s favorite of the 2010 selection, however, is the relatively unknown “100 Nails,” screening at the Guild Cinema Saturday.

“It’s beautifully filmed and it was nominated for six or seven Donatellos (the Italian Oscars). As far as I know, this is a national premiere,” Patrizio-Steiner said.

According to the film festival’s Web site, “100 Nails” is “heralded for its spectacular scenery, heartwarming message, fine acting and a question pondered through the centuries.”