April 3–6: Italian Film Festival
April 10–24: French Film Yesterday and Today
Two upcoming film series are bringing the best of western European cinema to the High in April—the Italian Film Festival and French Film Yesterday and Today. Eleven films make up the two series. Many have won international awards, and some have never before been shown in Atlanta. Running concurrently with the Italian Film Festival is a small exhibition of landscape photographs by Italian Ambassador Marco Rocca. About 20 photographs will be on view in Gallery 100, directly across from the Rich Theatre in the Memorial Arts Building.
“It has been increasingly difficult for lovers of Italian cinema to see new movies, as fewer and fewer films receive theatrical distribution in the U.S. Through this partnership with Miami’s Italian Film Festival, Atlanta audiences will be able to get a taste of some of the newest and best-received films coming out of Italy right now,” said Linda Dubler, the High’s curator of Media Arts. “It’s a great opportunity to share these films in addition to the acclaimed French films we would also present during these two April series.”
Italian Film Festival
The series begins on Thursday, April 3, with “The Days of Abandonment.” Olga, played by four-time Davide di Donatello–winner Margherita Buy, hits rock bottom when her professor husband leaves her for one of his students. “Days” follows Olga as she swims through her depression. Deborah Young praised the lead actress in her “Variety” review of the film, saying “this is more or less a one-woman show, and Buy rises to the occasion with surprising force.”
On Friday, April 4, at 7 p.m., the Italian Film Festival brings “One Out of Two” to the screen, a film in which an unlikely pair, upscale lawyer Lorenzo and truck-driver Giovanni, search for authentic life. When Lorenzo finds out he may have a malignant brain tumor, he is too nervous to sit idly in his hospital bed and await the results of his biopsy. Instead, he embarks on a journey to Umbria in search of Giovanni’s estranged daughter, hoping to bring the two back together.
“Manual of Love 2,” on Friday, April 4, at 9 p.m., is Giovanni Veronesi’s sequel to his first “Manual of Love,” which presents four new episodes of love lost, found and frustrated. Monica Bellucci stars in the first segment as a physical therapist on whom patient Nicola develops a crush. Additional segments follow a couple seeking infertility treatment, a gay couple trying to marry and an older married man who falls for his maid.
“Sorry You Can’t Get Through” will be shown on Saturday, April 5, at 6 p.m. Walter, an elderly trickster, reads that for every retired person, there is another person toiling away in the workforce. He decides that this means he must find his counterpart and become a sort of guardian angel. With the help of his friend Sara, he befriends the shy Piero and teaches him how to live.
At 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 5, “The Fever” focuses on Mario, a bored accountant who dreams of opening a nightclub. When he takes a well-paying position in the mayor’s office, he realizes that he needs to make a decision about whether he would rather fulfill his obligations or his hopes and dreams. This film about self-discovery features what Duane Byrge of the “Hollywood Reporter” called “smartly scoped compositions” and “flavorful” art direction.
The final day of the festival, Sunday, April 6, brings “What Will Become of Us,” a coming-of-age story about Matteo, Manuel and Paolo. They have just finished their high-school exams and are walking the line between childhood and adulthood, spending their final summer vacation in Greece. The film won awards in Italy, Egypt and Denmark in 2004 and 2005.
The Italian Film Festival closes on Sunday, April 6, at 7 p.m. with “Letters from the Sahara.” The film won the Award of Rome for Best Film at the 2006 Venice Film Festival and was subsequently shown at festivals from São Paolo to Jerusalem. “Letters” follows Assane on his journey from Senegal to Italy, where he faces hardships that are lessened when he meets and falls in love with a social worker named Caterina.
For additional information including film descriptions and running times please visit www.cinemaitaly.com
French Film Yesterday and Today
French Film Yesterday and Today begins on Thursday, April 10, with “La Moustache,” in which a successful architect loses his grasp on reality as result of a triviality: he shaves his mustache, but his wife doesn’t perceive a difference. Kevin Thomas of the “L.A. Times” called this witty psychological mystery “a deliciously unsettling, beautifully sustained film of much beauty and flawless performances.”
The second film in the series is “Forever,” showing on Friday, April 11. This documentary centers on Paris’s Père Lachaise cemetery, where Jim Morrison, Proust, Modigliani, Chopin and other famed artists are interred. With generosity and warmth, Dutch director Heddy Honigmann records her encounters with pilgrims to the famed resting place and locals who tend the plots of their loved ones.
“Gabrielle,” an elegant, chilly chamber drama, will be shown on Friday, April 18. Directed by Patrice Chereau and starring Isabelle Huppert, the film takes place in 1912 Paris at the home of a seemingly perfect couple. Despite their wealth, sophistication and famous weekly salon, Jean and Gabrielle’s marriage is empty due to Jean’s iciness and distaste for emotion. When Gabrielle inevitably strays, he discovers that while he never believed in love, he may not be able to live without it.
The series closes on Thursday, April 24, with a new print of François Truffaut’s 1962 film “Jules and Jim.” Set between the First and Second World Wars, the film follows two artist friends who are in love with the same woman—the wild and ravishing Catherine (Jeanne Moreau). As their lives go on, their relationships change, but their friendships remain strong. The film garnered best director and best film awards at multiple festivals.
Film Series Schedule
All films are screened in the Richard H. Rich Theatre, located in the Memorial Arts Building, adjacent to the High at Peachtree and 15th Streets in midtown Atlanta. All Italian Film Festival features are in Italian with English subtitles. French Film Yesterday and Today films will be shown in French with English subtitles unless otherwise noted.
Italian Film Festival
“The Days of Abandonment”
Thursday, April 3
7:30 p.m., Rich Theatre
(Italy, 2005, 96 minutes)
“One of Two”
Friday, April 4
7 p.m., Rich Theatre
(Italy, 2006, 100 minutes)
“Manual of Love 2”
Friday, April 4
9 p.m., Rich Theatre
(Italy, 2007, 105 minutes)
“Sorry You Can’t Get Through”
Saturday, April 5
6 p.m., Rich Theatre
(Italy, 2005, 98 minutes)
“The Fever”
Saturday, April 5
8 p.m., Rich Theatre(Italy, 2005, 108 minutes)
“What Will Become of Us”
Sunday, April 6
5 p.m., Rich Theatre
(Italy, 2004, 100 minutes)
“Letters from the Sahara”
Sunday, April 6
7 p.m., Rich Theatre
(Italy, 2006, 100 minutes)
French Film Yesterday and Today
“La Moustache”
Thursday, April 10, and Saturday, April 12
8 p.m., Rich Theatre
(France, 2005, 87 minutes)
In French, English and Cantonese with subtitles.
“Forever”
Friday, April 11
8 p.m., Rich Theatre
(Netherlands, 2006, 95 minutes)
“Gabrielle”
Friday, April 18
8 p.m., Rich Theatre
(France, Germany, Italy, 2005, 90 minutes)
“Jules and Jim”
Thursday, April 24, and Saturday, April 26
8 p.m., Rich Theatre
(France, 1962, 105 minutes)
In French, German and English with subtitles.
Support
The Italian Film Festival at the High Museum of Art is presented in conjunction with the Miami-based Italian Film Festival. French Film Yesterday and Today is an annual program made possible with support from the Embassy of France Cultural Services and the Consulate of France in Atlanta. 35mm projection facilities in the Rich Auditorium were provided by a gift from George Lefont.
Tickets
$5 for the public and $4 for Museum members, students and seniors. Patron-level members enter free. Tickets can be purchased in advance online at www.High.org, by visiting the Woodruff Arts Center Box Office or by calling 404-733-5000. Tickets may also be purchased at the door on the night of the screening. Phone and internet orders will incur a $1-per-ticket service fee.
The public may call the High’s film hotline at 404-733-4570 for up-to-the-minute information about visiting directors, receptions, changes or cancellations and for a free subscription to the quarterly film calendar. The Museum’s website is www.High.org.
Special Ticketing for Italian Film Festival
Additional information can be found at www.cinemaitaly.com. Tickets for each film during this special event are $10 general admission; $8 students, seniors and Museum members, including Patron-level members.
High Museum of Art
The High Museum of Art, founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association, is the leading art museum in the southeastern United States. With more than 11,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum of Art has an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American and decorative art; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and African art. The High is also dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists and is distinguished as the only major museum in North America to have a curatorial department specifically devoted to the field of folk and self-taught art. The High’s Media Arts department produces acclaimed annual film series and festivals of foreign, independent and classic cinema. In November 2005, the High opened three new buildings by architect Renzo Piano that more than doubled the Museum’s size, creating a vibrant “village for the arts” at the Woodruff Arts Center in midtown Atlanta. In October 2006, the High launched an unprecedented three-year partnership with the Musée du Louvre in Paris to bring hundreds of works of art to Atlanta. For more information about the High, please visit www.High.org.
The Woodruff Arts Center
The Woodruff Arts Center is ranked among the top four arts centers in the nation. A not-for-profit center for performing and visual arts, its campus comprises the Alliance Theatre, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the High Museum of Art, Young Audiences and the 14th Street Playhouse.
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