Press Release
Contact: Barbara Klein
Italian Film Festival of St. Louis
April 16, 2007 Phone 314-422-3102
ALLA LUCE DEL SOLE WINS ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL OF ST. LOUIS AWARD
The Italian Film Festival of St. Louis is pleased to announce that the winner of its 2007 audience choice award for Best Film is Alla luce del sole (Come Into The Light) by Roberto Faenza. Alla luce del sole recounts the real-life story of Father Giuseppe Puglisi, who tried to help the poor of his hometown parish in Brancaccio, Sicily; but his efforts placed him in a position of conflict with the local mafia powers and he was murdered.
This year’s festival, which ran from March 30 to April 14, featured the St. Louis premier of six recent Italian films: La bestia nel cuore (Don’t Tell) by Cristina Comencini, Il mio miglior nemico (My Best Enemy) by Carlo Verdone, La febbre (The Fever) by Alessandro D’Alatri, Romanzo criminale (Crime Novel) by Michele Placido, Alla luce del sole (Come Into The Light) by Roberto Faenza, and La terra (Our Land) by Sergio Rubini. All films were shown in 35mm in Italian with English subtitles in the 346 seat Brown Hall theatre on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.
The festival, which is in its third year, was sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago, Washington University’s Program in Film and Media Studies, and the National Italian American Foundation (www.niaf.org). The festival, which was free and open to the general public, attracted an estimated 1,800 spectators. For further information, please visit the festival's website www.italianfilmfestivalstlouis.com.