Circolo Italiano Film Series - Spring 2008

This semester we will screen Tullio Giordana’s 2002 film La meglio gioventù (The Best of Youth), presented in four episodes. Films will be shown at 7:30 pm on Tuesdays in Geology 143. Films are in Italian with English subtitles.The series is sponsored by the Department of French & Italian and is free and open to the public.

The story spans a period of 37 years, from 1966 to 2003, highlighting some momentous events in history, which molded in a way the spirit of modern day Italians: the flooding in Florence in 1966, the terrorist fighting in the '70s, the World Championship of 1982, the killing of Judge Falcone in 1992, and so on. The brothers Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) and Matteo (Alessio Boni) Carati begin their adventure helping Giorgia (Jasmine Trinca), a young girl confined to an asylum. Then, after the flood of Florence, Nicola meets Giulia (Sonia Bergamasco), a talented piano player with a dangerous sympathy for the Red Brigades. Matteo, a rebel spirit who joins the police, will find the optimistic photographer Mirella (Maya Sansa). These four characters and many others cross the years of terrorism and Tangentopoli. Their politics and personalities are inextricably intertwined as the world around them violently shifts and they are pushed together and pulled apart by the tides of history and their own divergent dreams. The film explores love, family, friendship, politics, mental illness, tragedy, and opportunities to forgive and heal. (www.imdb.com)

January 22
Part 1: sequences 1-5 (103 minutes)

February 5
Part 2: sequences 6-10 ( 77 minutes)

February 19
Part 3: sequences 11-15 ( 106 minutes)

March 25
Part 4: sequences 16-18( 74 minutes)