Onslaught of Italian Movies Set to Hit Fall Festival Circuit, Signaling ‘Great Resurgence’ of Cinema Italiano

Get ready for an onslaught of Italian movies on the post-Venice fall festival circuit.

Seven Italian titles are set launch into North America from Toronto. Seven will be bowing into Asia from Busan. Four will screen at the New York Film festival, and six in London.

The most significant aspect of these numbers is probably the fact that the New York fest selected four Italian films: Gianfranco Rosi’s “Below the Clouds,” Pietro Marcello’s “Duse,” Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia” and Francesco Sossai’s “The Last One for the Road.”

Oh, and the New York fest is opening Sept. 26 with Luca Guadagnino’s Julia Roberts-starrer “After the Hunt”; though it’s not an Italian-language movie, is certainly by an Italian director.

“It’s a signal of great resurgence,” says veteran sales agent Catia Rossi, who heads international distribution at PiperFilms.

“New York usually just selects one Italian film,” she notes. “To have four titles there really gives us hope that the U.S. market is warming to Italian cinema.”

Paradoxically, the cinema Italiano onslaught is happening at a time when, as Venice artistic director Alberto recently noted, local producers are contending with distribution woes. More than a third of the country’s 431 features produced in 2024 have not been released in theaters. More recently, the greenlight process for Italian movies has been stalled as the government dithers with modifications on tax incentives for local film and TV productions.

“It’s a really strong time for Italian cinema right now,” says Carla Cattani, head of the country’s promotional film body Filmitalia. This is partly because well-known directors Paolo Sorrentino and Gianfranco Rosi are premiering their new works simultaneously, just as revered auteur Marco Bellocchio is bowing his TV series “Portobello” in Venice and is also getting festival play elsewhere.

“Portobello” will be in Toronto and Busan, where Bellocchio will be honored with a retrospective.

But the big novelty, Rossi and Cattani say, is that this Italian invasion also includes works by younger directors. One case in point is Francesco Sossai’s debut feature, “The Last One for the Road,” which launched from Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and is going to Toronto, Busan and New York. Then there is elevated horror helmer Paolo Strippoli’s third feature “Holy Boy” (pictured, above), which will be in Busan and London following its Venice out-of-competition launch.

London will also showcase sophomore director Carolina Cavalli’s quirky comedy “The Kidnapping of Arabella,” while first-timer Gioia Spampinato’s Sicily-set family drama “Sweetheart” will be in Busan after launching from Locarno.

“In my 20 years of experience, an Italian presence of this scale at fall festivals” is unprecedented,” says Rossi. “In the past, we might have had a year when a bunch of Italy’s big auteurs all had a movie ready, but I’ve never seen so many movies representing such as range and diversity in terms of genres and directors.”