Los Angeles is being faced with an "Embarrassment of Riches".

I just reported on "Cinema Italian Style", a two week presentation of New Italian Film sponsored by the Italian Government in tribute to Italian National Day.

Now there is news that contemporaneously, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will also be making three presentations over those same two weeks; `Dreams, Longings & Memories -- The Cinema of Federico Fellini', and 'Italy on Film: La Bella Vita', and  'Under the Sign of Fellini: Cinema Italian Style'
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CINE FILE
ITALIAN FILMS: ONCE MORE WITH FEELING
One series honors Fellini, another surveys contemporary works.

Los Angeles Times
By Susan King
Times Staff Writer
May 23 2004

Two film series at the American Cinematheque explore the yesterday and today of Italian cinema.

A complete retrospective of the work of one of Italy's greatest directors, Federico Fellini, is taking place at the Egyptian Theatre through May 31. Then on June 3, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents "Italy on Film: La Bella Vita," an evening of clips and special guests with host Michael York that explores Americans' love affair with Italian cinema.

Not only have Italian stars enjoyed success in America, U.S. stars like Clint Eastwood and Steve Reeves have also found stardom in Italian cinema. Eleven Italian films have received the foreign language Oscar, and the two Academy Awards won by actors for a non-English language lead performance went to Sophia Loren ("Two Women") and Robert Benigni ("Life Is Beautiful.")

The academy evening is also the official opening night for "Under the Sign of Fellini: Cinema Italian Style" series of contemporary Italian movies at the Cinematheque.

Edoardo Ponti, the writer-director son of Loren and producer Carlo Ponti, will be representing his mother at the academy festivities. He believes Americans have embraced Italian films over the decades because both cinemas at their best "are built on emotion and soul and the struggle of the ordinary man in a certain way."

Unlike successful directors from countries such as Germany, Holland and Japan who came to Hollywood, most Italian directors have preferred to work in their country. "Fellini never wanted to work in America," Ponti says. "The strength of the Italian cinema is the very fact that it is Italian. Many Italian filmmakers directly got their inspiration from their own country. Even someone like Vittorio De Sica, who did American movies, was never as successful as he was with his Italian movies. The Italian soul expressed in Italian creates that magic or miracle."

Fellini, who died in 1993, began his career as part of Italy's influential post-World War II neo-realist movement. Working as a screenwriter for directors such as Roberto Rossellini, Fellini co-directed his first feature, "Variety Lights," in 1950. He won the Oscar for best foreign language film four times and received a lifetime achievement Academy Award just a few months before his death.

The Cinematheque Fellini festival includes classics like "La Dolce Vita," "Nights of Cabiria," "Fellini Satyricon," and "Amarcord" as well as such rarities as "The Voice of the Moon," a 1990 film never released in the U.S.

"There is a rhythm of the Italian language and its behavior that welcomes emotions," Ponti says. "The movies of the neo-realism and the movies that really successfully symbolized the Italian cinema were about pure emotion without any sense of cynicism. They were not scared of feeling something. I think that's what really made Italian cinema so popular."

"Under the Sign of Fellini," which continues through June 13, features 14 new Italian features, including Marco Tullio Giordana's "La Meglio Gioventù," a six-hour epic chronicling 40 years in the life of an Italian family, and "Non Ti Muovere," a drama about illicit love with Penélope Cruz and directed by Sergio Castellitto.

Alessandro Usai, the managing director of Cinecittá Holding, a sponsor of the festivals, says Italian cinema is enjoying a creative renaissance. "We consider the '80s to be the worst period," he says. "Then in the '90s the Italian movie industry started back and now it is healthier than it has been in 25 years."

"I think the new generation of actors who are coming up now are really good," Ponti adds. "It is something wonderful for Italy. For some years there was this tradition that an actor in Italy was chosen based on how good looking they were. Just in the last, I would say five years, there has really been a focus on the part of Italian actors on the craft of acting that has made it easier for movies to explore more intimately the existence of people in a very real and subtle way."
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`Dreams, Longings & Memories -- The Cinema of Federico Fellini'

When: Through May 31
Sunday: "Juliet of the Spirits," 3 p.m.; "The Swindle" and "Nights of Cabiria." 6 p.m.
Wednesday: "Toby Dammit" and "The Temptation of Dr. Antonio" and "And the Ship Sails On," 7:15 p.m.
Friday: "Fellini Satyricon," 7:30 p.m.; "The Clowns" and "Roma," "9:30 p.m.
Saturday: "The Magic of Fellini" and "The Mysterious Journey of Fellini," 2 p.m.; "La Dolce Vita," 5 p.m., "Fellini's Casanova" and "Orchestral Rehearsal," 8:45 p.m.
May 30: "Walt Disney & Fellini" and "La Tivù di Fellini," 1 p.m.; "Amarcord," 3:30 p.m.; "City of Women" and "Ginger and Fred," 6:15 p.m.
May 31: "Intervista" and "The Voice of the Moon," 7:15 p.m.
Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
Price: $9 general; $8 seniors, students with ID, $6 Cinematheque members

'Italy on Film: La Bella Vita'

When: June 3 at 8 p.m.
Where: Samuel Goldwyn Theater, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills
Price: $5
Contact: (310) 247-3600 or go to www.oscars.org

'Under the Sign of Fellini: Cinema Italian Style'

When: June 4-13
Where: Egyptian Theatre
Price: $9 general; $8 seniors, students with ID, $6 Cinematheque members
Contact: For program information call (323) 466-FILM or go to www.egyptiantheatre.com