Italian Film Week

This programme features a retrospective of the renowned Italian filmmaker: Roberto Rossellini as well as a selection of gender-balanced contemporary films, packed with diverse stories, locations, and geographies. These acclaimed titles have garnered huge critical success at festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlinale, and Rotterdam.

Our journey begins with Paola Cortellesi’s film, There’s Still Tomorrow, the story of Delia and her attempts to escape the patriarchy in Italian post-war society. The latest film by esteemed Italian filmmaker, Nanni Moretti, A Brighter Tomorrow, explores a movie director's struggles with his family relationships and his latest film depicting the impact of the USSR invasion of Hungary on the Italian Communist Party in 1956. We further delve into a family drama depicted in the form of a thriller in the film Like Sheep Among Wolves, directed by Lyda Patitucci. La Chimera by Alice Rohrwacher follows Arthur and his band of tombaroli, thieves of ancient archaeological wonders, as they set on an adventure spanning the realms of the living and the dead, traversing forests and cities, and navigating celebrations and solitudes. We further embark on an unorthodox love story set between Morocco and Italy in Casablanca by Adriano Valerio and navigate between Belarus, France, and Niger to explore colonialism in the modern world with Disco Boy by Giacomo Abbruzzese.

The Italian Film Week also pays tribute to master filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, one of the neo-realism pioneers whose films have influenced France's nouvelle vague movement in the 1950s and '60s, fundamentally altering the landscape of international cinema. The Roberto Rossellini Retrospective celebrates his legacy with three of his seminal works: Rome, Open City, Stromboli, and Journey to Italy.

Presented in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute Abu Dhabi, the Italian Film Week runs from May 31 - June 6, 2024.

Follow us into the dark!