San Diego is heading into its busy film festival season, with the Italian, Filipino, international and Asian film festivals filling cinemas in October and November. First up is the San Diego Italian Film Festival (SDIFF), which kicks off Oct. 1.
SDIFF began because of a wonderful man named Victor Laruccia. He imagined it not just as a festival to showcase Italian films but what he liked to call an Italian perspective. Another element of the festival that comes from him is his love of gathering people around film, food and conversation. He envisioned it as what he called a "piazza," a place where people could gather to enjoy all these things. Today, the driving force behind the festival is artistic director Antonio Iannotta.
Each year, the festival picks a theme to guide the films chosen, and this year the theme is courage.
SDIFF kicks off Oct. 1 at Digital Gym Cinema with a showcase of the Ristretto short films. This showcases Italian and Italian American short films and has been a passion project for Iannotta and the festival. Yazdi Pithavala and I have both been fortunate enough to be part of this jury for multiple years, reviewing all the finalists and choosing winners along with the rest of the jury.
"I just love the sense of community that we all have," Pithavala said. "We all have pretty strong differences in opinions, but it's always, always so polite, and it's always very congenial. And I love that we as a group can come together, put our differences aside and pick a winner. And I think we should take pride in the fact that the jury has picked all kinds of movies for the top prize — documentaries, animated films. One year, we even picked a film that was made by a student."
I highly recommend the shorts program, because you will get a wonderfully diverse array of films both in terms of styles and content.
Starting Oct. 2, the festival moves to the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park to spotlight one feature a night through Oct. 10, with the annual Festa on Oct. 11.
Some highlights include "Vermiglio," Italy’s official selection for the 2025 Academy Awards; "Marcella," about the famous chef; "Il tempo che ci vuole (The Time It Takes)," about a father-daughter relationship centered around cinema; and the political biopic "Berlinguer: La grande ambizione (The Great Ambition)."
SDIFF is always a great event. It is a festival that celebrates not just film but the conversations inspired by those films. So if a film about Italian politics sounds off-putting because it is unfamiliar to you, have no fear. Iannotta will be on hand to introduce and provide context, and you can always hang out after the film for more discussion. These are films that find the universal within the context of very specific stories.
So let yourself be enveloped in the warm embrace of an Italian perspective.
