Italian Contemporary Film Festival 2015 Program

Italian Contemporary Film Festival 2015 Program

May 12, 2015, TORONTO — The Italian Contemporary Film Festival (ICFF) unveils its 2015 program today at The Ritz-Carlton hotel in Toronto. The annual festival celebrates the best in contemporary Italian cinema from around the world. ICFF runs from June 11-19, 2015 in Toronto, Vaughan, Mississauga, Hamilton, Montreal and Quebec City.

“The ICFF slate is a diverse collection of new and returning voices all linked by Italian culture,” says Artistic Director Cristiano de Florentiis. “This year’s films take a creative and multicultural approach to current events and contemporary issues. We’re also excited to shine a spotlight on features and shorts by Italian Canadian filmmakers.”

The festival opens with a gala at Roy Thomson Hall and closes with a celebration at The Ritz- Carlton hotel. ICFF’s opening film is the international premiere of the drama L’Oriana, starring Vittoria Puccini as famed journalist Oriana Fallaci. At 17, Fallaci risked her life as part of the anti-fascist resistance movement Giosfizia e Liberia and continued to raise controversy by fighting Islamic extremism into her 70s.

The festival closes with the comedy Sei mai stata sulla luna? by Paolo Genovese on June 19 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox at 7:30 p.m. Italy’s Sabrina lmpacciatore (T/›e Passion of the Christ, The Last Miss) will present the film.

ICFF 2015 includes more than 19 premieres, a pre-festival retrospective of Roberto Benigni and Nicoletta Braschi, co-presented with TIFF and in collaboration with the U of T, as well as the children’s festival, ICFF Junior, which is presenting the Canadian premiere of the Italian- Canadian co-production (Midnight Sun), starring Dakota Goyo and Bridget Moynahan and directed by Roger Spottiswoode and Brando Quilici. All foreign language films are subtitled.

The second annual ICFF Industry Day, an event organized in collaboration with myETV Media, Pinewood Studios and SIRT Sheridan, facilitates connections between Italian and Canadian film industries. This year the event focuses on animated films.

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About ICFF

The 4th annual Italian Contemporary Film Festival (ICFF) runs from June 11-19 2015, during Canada’s Italian Heritage Month. The festival presents an international collection of feature films, documentaries and shorts, including premieres, advance screenings and independent films. Screenings are supplemented by guest appearances by filmmakers, actors, authors, academics and other expert speakers who partake in question and answer sessions following most screenings. ICFF is generously supported by leading sponsors; The Ritz-Carlton Toronto, Castlepoint and Green for Life Environmental inc. It is also supported by major partners; TIFF, Cineplex, Cinematheque Quebecoise, Cinema Guzzo, Cinema Cartier, Ambasciata d’ltalia, Consolato d’ltalia a Toronto e Montreal, lstituto ltaliano di Cultura, Italian Trade Commission and L’Altra ltalia.

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Infinithéâtre Kafka Ape August 7-17 Gladstone Hotel

Infinithéâtre Kafka Ape August 7-17 Gladstone Hotel

 

Infinithéâtre’s Kafka’s Ape
runs August 7-17 at the Gladstone Hotel

Montreal’s Infinithéâtre presents
Kafka’s Ape
as part of SummerWorks

Based on Franz Kafka’s A Report to an Academy
Adapted and Directed by Guy Sprung

Starring Howard Rosenstein

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

Toronto, August 1, 2014 – Montreal’s Infinithéâtre proudly presents the Toronto premiere of its critically acclaimed Kafka’s Ape as part of the Mainstage Series at the SummerWorks Performance Festival and runs August 7-17 at the Gladstone Hotel, a site-specific venue of SummerWorks.

“Howard Rosenstein knocks it out of the park in the title role. Bravo!” – Pat Donnelly of Montreal Gazette

Based on Franz Kafka’s short story A Report to an Academy (1917), and adapted by director Guy Sprung from the original German, Kafka’s Ape upends the notion of civilization and what it means to be human in a world of routinized inhumanity. An unnerving satire on “otherness” and the compounding growth of private military companies, Kafka’s Ape stars Howard Rosenstein as keynote speaker – and primate – Mr. Redpeter in a theatrical tour-de-force performance. Alexandra Montagnese enthrallingly plays the silent role of Mrs. Redpeter.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) is widely celebrated as one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Written during the darkest hours of the Great War (whose centenary is being marked across the globe this summer), Kafka’s A Report to an Academy (Ein Bericht für eine Academie) is a tale of a captured simian turned into a celebrated variety show act. In Sprung’s scathing adaptation, Redpeter ends up as a distinguished member of the “private security industry,” one of the biggest growth industries of the 21st century. In place of the “report to an academy” of early 20th century scientists, Sprung presents “a keynote address” to the shareholders of a fictitious private military corporation, Graywater.

After his capture in the African jungle, the ape Redpeter realizes his only escape route is to become a walking, talking, spitting, hard-drinking member of the “Peace Industry,” the entrepreneurial world of mercenary soldiers. In his keynote address to Graywater’s annual general meeting detailing the journey of his enforced evolution from Apehood to Humanhood, Mr. Redpeter embodies the irony that he is perhaps now more animalistic and less human than he ever was as a “lower” primate.
“I deliberately don’t use the word ‘freedom’. ‘Freedom’ is a powerfully seductive word which your so-called civilized world uses very cleverly, very effectively, to entrap and occupy whole continents.” – Redpeter

Kafka’s central thesis in his satire on forced assimilation – that other animals have a dignity and a respect for Mother Nature and their own species that Homo sapiens have lost – has been nudged into the 21st century. “When Kafka first wrote this short story, millions of human beings were coerced into an orgy of killing each other, proving Homo sapiens to be vastly superior to gorillas and chimpanzees when it came to mass murder and genocide. Ironically, one of the largest of the private military corporations doing business with the American government today is called Academi, formerly known as Blackwater. In a sense, it still is a report to an Academy. Was Kafka able to see into the future?” queries Sprung.
Movement coaches Anana Rydvald and Zach Fraser (also Assistant Director) helped the actors find the “ape” in themselves. Sound Design and Video is by Nikita U, Creature Makeup Design by Vladamir Cara. An excerpt from the play can be found here: http://www.infinitheatre.com/kafkas-ape.html

Founded in 1988 as Theatre 1774, Infinithéâtre’s mission is to develop, produce and broker new Québec theatre that is as entertaining as it is relevant, beginning with the belief that live theatre is an essential part of society’s democratic discourse and that great theatre speaks to and about its own community. Artistic Director Guy Sprung is a Montreal director, writer and actor who has been practicing his craft for over 40 years. Mr. Sprung was the co-founder of Toronto’s Canadian Stage, a dream he and the late Bill Glassco, who was running CentreStage at the time, together made a reality. As Artistic Director of the other of Canadian Stage’s precursors, Toronto Free Theatre, one of Sprung’s legacies was the conception and founding of The Dream In High Park, Toronto’s annual pay-what-you-can outdoor Shakespearean festival. Rebranded for its 30th anniversary in 2012 as Shakespeare in High Park, this tremendously popular event continues to thrive.

About SummerWorks Performance Festival: As the largest juried performance festival in Canada featuring predominantly new Canadian work, SummerWorks programs a festival that uniquely reflects Toronto and Canada’s cultural zeitgeist. Since 1991, SummerWorks has continued to explore and respond to the needs and wants of audiences and the performance community. The festival has grown to become one of the country’s preeminent multidisciplinary hubs featuring a Music Series, Live art Series, SummerWorks Leadership Intensive Program (S.L.I.P.) and the National Series, showcasing works from across Canada. The festival adds new initiatives yearly, including performance based programs such as the Performance Bar. The 2014 SummerWorks Performance Festival runs August 7-17. Visit http://summerworks.ca/2014/ .

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