Colin Firth , The King’s Speech, Does it in Italian !

I am as always trying to find the Italian aspect of a winner, Colin Firth is not Italian however he has been married to the Italian film producer Livia Giuggioli since 1997 , with whom he has 2 children. Livia Giuggioli has been known to be on the run from the Fashion Police, her dress sense is something else and could easily be compared to that of  Nancy d’allio .OK, not really that interesting so have a look at this video from the Oscar night and his red carpet performance . Colin Firth was confronted  by Italy’s Sky News interviewer,  this will surely make your day. I keep asking myself ” Is there no end to this Golden Goose and his talent” ? I think once you have seen this Video you will agree that the answer is NO !

18 anni dopo, 18 Years Later

18 anni dopo, 18 Years Later, is a charming Road movie well worth watching, when it appears at a festival near you , it is currently doing very well abroad and have been included in numerous International Film Festivals .It will be in competition in Fantasporto 2011 in Portugal later this month, together with Hayfever, Febbre da fieno. The film is another comedy , Italy is turning them out at the moment , I am on my knees praying that at least one thriller, Drama even a romantic film will emerge among this years offerings, without any trace of comedy

Director : Edorado Leo , is well known in his native Italy for his many roles in TV series as an actor, this is his second attempt at a feature film, it has as yet not been released nationwide so lets hope that the amount of attention it gets outside Italy will be enough to get it distributed here too.

Cast : Marco Bonini, Edorado Leo, Sabrina Impacciatore, Eugenia Costantini,Gabriele Ferzetti

Best moment :  The two brothers interaction with the local Calabrese is a joy to watch.

Synobsis : We follow two brothers on the road in a restored convertiable Morgan, traveling towards Calabria and theire dead fathers hometown, where they must deliver his ashes.

Genziano (Marco Bonini) and Mirko ( Edoardo Leo) have not spoken for 18 years after falling out over an incident involving their mother, Genziano went off to London, where he excelled and became a successful businessman, while Mirko remained working with his father’s car business.

We follow the pair as they drive towards Calabria ,often meeting up with a mysterious hitchhiker, the gorgeous and tallented Mirella ( Sabrina Impacciatore) who appear when least expected. The stunning landscape and great cinematography make this such an easy film to watch. Many secrets are reveled on rute and a touching final is awaiting you .

Subtitles are important !

In Italy all films and programmes are dubbed, it is extremely rare to watch a film on TV or in the cinema with subtitles. I really wish this was not so, watching Brad Pitt speaking with a high pitch voice in one film and a deep tenor in another is distracting to say the least. Living here now, as I am lucky enough to do full-time, I have had to forgo the joy of watching an American or English film unless the actors are unknown to me. I did recently catch up with the much acclaimed “The King’s Speech” starring the now BAFTA and Oscar winner Colin Firth, I am reluctant to admit that after a certain length of time, I did forget that it was not Colin Firth speaking and the speech did often match the movement of his mouth….. Using the term “often’’ loosely.

My pet hate has always been the careless way Italian filmmakers slap on subtitles more and less as an afterthought once the film has been produced. While living in London I often walked out mid film if the subtitles were too offensive. One such example was Romanzo Criminale, A Criminal Novel directed by Michele Placido, in fact I walked out with Placido and I returned for the Q&A with him, I was informed that as a director he was not responsible for the subtitles HA X 2 I am sure if he made enough fuss, something would be done.

I have had many discussions with Directors and Producers about this subject; I have indeed written numerous letters to Cinecitta Luce, Medusa, 01 Distribution, Rai  and Iris trying to encourage good subtitling, is the Italian Film Industry taking any notice of Primociak? No is the answer  NOT YET.

The film La Vita e bella, Life is beautiful has perfect subtitles, not a trace of slang made it onto our screens, it won Roberto Benigni 3 Oscars, cinema gold those moments in Hollywood, with Roberto on the chair….. had me wiping away tears of joy,  his follow-up apology for running out of English when he won best Actor ( first foreign actor ever to do that ), as he had not planned 3 speeches was cute too.

Perhaps all producers should sit and read a few films before actually producing any, if I worked for a film festival and was sent hundreds of films to watch; it would hit the “return to sender” box after 10 minutes if I was struggling to understand the subtitles. The biggest mistake are films made with Italian actors who speak in a local accent such as Romanzo Criminale, the gang spoke in a strong roman accent throughout, in an attempt to pass that across to the foreign viewers, we were treated to gimmi, gonna, gotta, cos’of, dammi, lemmi and other London slang, we had to sit for nearly 2 hours READING a London accent just because the gang spoke Roman….Does that makes sense to you?

La vita e bella , Life is beautiful; I would like to think 100% perfect subtitles played some small part in making this film such a great success outside Italy.

Three clips for you from Italy’s biggest Oscar success ever, that is what I call generous. The 3rd Oscar was for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score by Nicola Piovani  ( I was not able to find a clip from this without the whole run up.)