Italian Cinema Forum 2020. Aprile (N. Moretti). A talk with Dr Mark Nicholls

CO.AS.IT. Italian Australian culture series on line. Talk #8.

CO.AS.IT., in collaboration with the University of Melbourne and Dr Mark Nicholls, presents ITALIAN CINEMA FORUM 2020

Talk #2. APRILE (Nanni Moretti, 1998)

This talk may be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib35wizxtZM

Directed by Nanni Moretti (Caro Diario, The Son’s Room, Mia Madre), Aprile is a highly amusing and politically astute film diary of a creative life at the beginnings of Italy’s most recent political revolution. Aprile records the birth of Moretti’s son. It also witnesses the flourishing of the Lega Nord, Forza Italia and the rise of Silvio Berlusconi and his particular brand of political populism, the reverberations of which we are still feeling, world-wide, today. Joined by his family and friends, Nanni Moretti works hard to make a documentary about this changing social and political landscape, all the time longing for escape into his pet project, a 1950s style musical about a Trotskyite pastry chef in a Stalinist world. In the end both films seem to combine most amusingly into one.

Mark Nicholls is Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne where he has taught film since 1993. Mark has worked as a film journalist for ABC Radio and The Age and has a list of over twenty stage credits as a playwright, performer, producer and director.

ITALIAN CINEMA FORUM 2000

Following our successful classic Italian cinema workshops in 2019, we continue the discussion with a series of more recent classics. Dr Mark Nicholls will present introductions to six films for discussion this year. Our aim is to stimulate you to watch these wonderful films, again or for the first time, in preparation for the spirited conversations of our regular forum – as soon as it can begin.

Join Mark on-line for the introductions to this year’s films:

• The Last Emperor (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1987)

• Aprile (Nanni Moretti, 1998)

• Looking for Alibrandi (Kate Woods, 2000)

• Giorni (Laura Muscardin, 2001)

• Il Divo (Paolo Sorrentino, 2008)

• Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino, 2017)

The talks of the 2020 ITALIAN CINEMA FORUM (part of CO.AS.IT.’s Italian Australian culture series on line) will be published on CO.AS.IT.’s website, Facebook page and YouTube channel at roughly fortnightly intervals; as with the other talks of the series, they will remain accessible on these platforms. People in CO.AS.IT.’s mailing list will be notified of each talk as soon as it is published.

With the support of Multicultural Museums Victoria.

Image: A still from Aprile (sourced from Internet).