Audiences are invited to join us for a selection of films centered on desire and longing, touching on themes of memory, artistic heritage, social responsibility, personal choice and authenticity.
Films are screened in their original language with English subtitles.
Friday, January 30
La chimera (The Chimera)
by Alice Rohrwacher (2023, 131 min.)
From Alice Rohrwacher (The Wonders, Happy as Lazzaro) comes the fable of a rumpled English archaeologist and his wayward crew of accomplices looting Etruscan tombs in 1980s Italy, in pursuit of what might be the find of the century. Narrated as a modern fable, it draws on the real history of the tombaroli—illegal tomb robbers in search for antiquities to sell—set against a period of major social and economic change. The film is also an exploration of the market’s impulse to commodify even what is hidden and imbued with soul.
Friday, February 13
Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope)
by Nanni Moretti (2011, 102 min.)
A newly elected Pope (played by the great Michel Piccoli) suffers a panic attack just as he is about to greet the faithful who have gathered in St. Peter’s Square. While his advisors summon a renowned atheist psychoanalyst (Nanni Moretti), the Pope quietly slips into the streets of Rome in disguise, searching for himself. As their paths unfold in opposite directions, the film explores the gap between power and real life. The analyst, confident in reason and supposedly open-minded, remains enclosed within his own convictions, while the Pope—meant to embody authority and dogma—faces doubt and vulnerability.
Friday, February 27
Moonstruck
by Norman Jewison (1987, 102 min.)
In her Oscar-winning role, Cher plays Loretta Castorini, a widowed bookkeeper in Brooklyn who falls in love with the brother of the man she has agreed to marry. Centered on an intergenerational Italian-American family in New York City, the film explores love as a deeply human, funny, and often ruinous force. It also offer a reflection on how post-war Italian culture was reshaped through migration to the United States and represented through cinema.
Friday, March 13
Fire of Love
by Sara Dosa (2022, 98 min.)
This Oscar-nominated documentary tells the extraordinary love story of French scientist and filmmakers Katia and Maurice Krafft, as they travel the world studying volcanoes. From Mount Etna and Stromboli to some of the most remote sites on Earth, they capture some of the most stunning images of volcanoes ever recorded. A story of primordial creation and destruction, following two bold explorers as they venture into the unknown, all for the sake of love.
Free screening, generously offered by National Geographic.
