With the aim of offering Vietnamese audiences a contemporary perspective on Italian cinema, the Italian Embassy in Hanoi, in collaboration with the Asian Film Festival in Rome, presents the Italian Film Festival 2024.

Ambassador to Vietnam Marco della Seta gives an introduction to the Italian Film Festival. Photo: Italian Embassy in Hanoi

All screenings will be in Italian with Vietnamese and English subtitles from September 23 to 28 at 7:30 pm at the National Cinema Center (87 Lang Ha, Hanoi). Registration for the Italian Film Festival is available at: https://forms.gle/2RehtdFonmqaHMD58

This year's festival presents six of the most recent and popular films by Italian filmmakers, ranging from drama to comedy.

At the press conference announcing the event on September 16, Italian Ambassador to Vietnam Marco della Seta revealed that the films selected for this year's festival are all recent successes that have been widely acclaimed in Italy and internationally.

The selected productions, which have won many prestigious awards in Europe and around the world, represent the quintessence of Italy. Through frames ranging from reality to dreams, from humor to despair, they offer a privileged glimpse into the multifaceted modern Italian society, touching on pressing political, economic, and social issues such as migration and working conditions.

A scene from the film Io Capitano or I’m A Captain by Director Matteo Garrone, 2023.

"The year 2023 is considered a successful year for Italian cinema, with many outstanding works. Personally, I think the films selected for this year's Italian Film Festival are even better than last year's," said the Ambassador.

According to him, these films blend typical Italian colors with elements of realism and fantasy, as well as tragedy and comedy, to present a multi-dimensional portrayal of contemporary Italian society.

In particular, the drama Io Capitano or I'm A Captain (directed by Matteo Garrone, 2023) tells the story of Seydou and Moussa, two Senegalese teenage cousins who leave their hometown of Dakar to reach Italy and escape poverty.

The film was released in Italy on September 7, 2023, to critical acclaim and won seven awards at the 69th David di Donatello Awards, including Best Film. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 81st Golden Globe Awards and for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

A scene from the film La Chimera/ The Impossible Dream, 2023, Alice Rohrwacher.

Meanwhile, La Chimera - meaning "The Impossible Dream" in Italian - is a 2023 period comedy-drama film written and directed by Alice Rohrwacher.

La Chimera is the story of Italy's Great Raid, a 1980s phenomenon in which hundreds of ancient Etruscan tombs were looted by grave robbers. These crypts had been considered sacred for over 2,000 years, left intact by the locals out of reverence for the dead. But a cultural shift, brought on by the hyper-charged capitalism of the era, saw gangs of renegades breaking in and selling whatever they could find on the black market.

According to international film critics, La Chimera is about much more than a man's search for his girlfriend. It's about our relationship with the past, the emptiness of materialism, the magic of the invisible, the darkness and the light of humanity. 

Each screening will be followed by a Q&A and discussion with the artistic director of the Asian Film Festival in Rome and the Italian Film Festival in Hanoi, Antonio Termenini.