by Roberto Ragone, President FIERI International
"Ciao America," an independent film by two FIERI members, Frank and Joseph Ciota, is a . beautifully-rendered film, portraying Italy and Italian Americans in a refreshingly dignified light. Joseph, the writer and Frank, the director admirably risk introducing a new genre of Italian American filmmaking. If the criteria for clever innovation is providing a fascinatingly positive and lingering view of Italian themes and characters, this movie soars with flying colors. It's genuine. It's real. The story is seamless and the acting effortless. It's as fun as "Big, Fat Greek Wedding," but more profound and moving.
The protagonist, Lorenzo Primavera (played by Eddie Malavarca) is driven to become a "somebody" by his late grandfather, also named Lorenzo Primavera (played by Antonio Navarro), and his somewhat detached father, Antonio Primavera (played by Paul Sorvino). The young Lorenzo is a recent college graduate, reflective and articulate, with an attractively tempered urban accent. He returns to Italy to understand his heritage. Meanwhile, he searches out the reason why his grandfather (who was also his mentor and role model) never returned to the homeland he left behind in 1933.
While in Italy, the grandson tries to support himself by coaching a less-than-amateur team that plays American football, but whose players show their conventional preference for soccer during practice and occasionally during a game. This subplot is the source of rich, cleverly interspersed comic relief.
The film is set mostly in Ferrara, Italy but also includes breathtaking scenes of Florence and a brief, but peacefully quaint visit to the town in Avellino that Lorenzo's grandfather abandoned. The film sprinkles overt and subliminal tributes to Italy's beauty and accomplishments, from the unusual claim that American football was invented in Florence to invocations of love juxtaposed against Leonardo's art, Ferrara's architecture, and Florence's landscape. The film also includes contemporary Italian music and celebrations of Carnevale, showing young people honoring traditions while defining and engaging in their own youth culture and styles.
In this milieu, the protagonist falls in love at first sight and the audience encounters a moving love story with powerful chemistry, as well as a sexually delightful cooking scene. The target of his affection, Paola Angelini (played by actress Violante Placido), epitomizes contemporary women in Italy. She seeks the identity and independence that comes with education. Meanwhile she comports herself with stunningly natural concepts of beauty and a respect for family, cultural traditions, and local customs. Ironically Placido is the real life daughter of Simonetta Stefanelli who played Apollonia in the landmark film "The Godfather" in which she represented for Americans the classic ideal of nostalgic Italian beauty.
Antonio Primavera, an endearing gold-chained fossil reminiscent of another era in demeanor and mannerisms, is confrontational, yet sympathetic and loving towards his son. Ironically, Sorvino's character is the Italian ethnic who felt the need to identify only with America while living out an ostentatiously Americanized notion of Italian ethnicity. He looked at Italy as a country you leave and "Italian" as an identity you leave behind. At best, he saw the "Old Country" as a digression from the reality of daily life in America and a diversion from a natural progression that comes from making one's home in America. He saw no value in his son staying there.
World-renown actor, Giancarlo Gianinni plays Felice, the protagonist's granduncle (his grandfather Lorenzo's brother-in-law), who leads the young Lorenzo through the grandfather's small town in Avellino. Felice is a metaphorical Virgil escorting the young Lorenzo as Dante through what "Just Do It Americans" would consider Purgatory---complaisant complacency without opportunity. Purgatorio is an appropriate metaphor since Lorenzo must find catharsis for himself and his grandfather by reconciling with the past. Felice is his guide, figuratively and literally walking Lorenzo through the history, complete with sites and family artifacts.
Here is the film's most wonderfully ironic twist: Before going to Italy, the grandson assumed he must compensate for his grandfather's regrets, mistakes, and failures by working hard in the United States to become a socio-economic success. Now in Italy, he learns his grandfather was also intensely remorseful on matters of the heart.
Abruptly, the grandson finds himself confronting a modern-day version of his grandfather's dilemma: going to America for opportunity, or remaining in Italy for love, could each amount to the same wrong, no-win decision the grandfather had to make.
Having returned to Italy, Lorenzo Primavera is challenged to weigh the bad-luck and fatalism of his grandfather's culture (that also pervades the Italian football team with more levity), against the optimistically hopeful American mantra contending "We make our own breaks." Lorenzo Primavera feels a tension over whether to believe we actually 'make our own breaks' or passively succeed from good or bad luck. This is the somberly cerebral undertone cutting across the film's various subplots.
The title of the film itself is an upbeat catchphrase for the protagonist's heart-wrenching dilemma. The dual meaning of "ciao" in the title captures the protagonist's choice: to affectionately return to America or bid it a fond farewell, as a young man in love leaves his roots there to reconnect with the deeper soil and soul where it all began. In either case, "Ciao" as hello or goodbye is an "Ode to America" (to a land of opportunity), which at one point made Italy something to leave and now something to return to.
Ultimately, Lorenzo and his girlfriend each make their decision autonomously The audience accepts and embraces the decision Lorenzo ultimately makes. The filmmakers should also be applauded for the way the decision is revealed and the scene is rendered to the audience.
All of the film's elements exemplify much of the brilliance of the movie. It's sophisticated yet earthy and humanistic, capturing what being Italian is really all about.
FIERI is an international organization of students and young professionals that strives to preserve Italian culture, foster networking opportunities, encourage higher education through scholarships and mentoring, and promote positive images of the Italian heritage.
"Ciao America," an independent film by two FIERI members, Frank and Joseph Ciota, is a . beautifully-rendered film, portraying Italy and Italian Americans in a refreshingly dignified light. Joseph, the writer and Frank, the director admirably risk introducing a new genre of Italian American filmmaking. If the criteria for clever innovation is providing a fascinatingly positive and lingering view of Italian themes and characters, this movie soars with flying colors. It's genuine. It's real. The story is seamless and the acting effortless. It's as fun as "Big, Fat Greek Wedding," but more profound and moving.
The protagonist, Lorenzo Primavera (played by Eddie Malavarca) is driven to become a "somebody" by his late grandfather, also named Lorenzo Primavera (played by Antonio Navarro), and his somewhat detached father, Antonio Primavera (played by Paul Sorvino). The young Lorenzo is a recent college graduate, reflective and articulate, with an attractively tempered urban accent. He returns to Italy to understand his heritage. Meanwhile, he searches out the reason why his grandfather (who was also his mentor and role model) never returned to the homeland he left behind in 1933.
While in Italy, the grandson tries to support himself by coaching a less-than-amateur team that plays American football, but whose players show their conventional preference for soccer during practice and occasionally during a game. This subplot is the source of rich, cleverly interspersed comic relief.
The film is set mostly in Ferrara, Italy but also includes breathtaking scenes of Florence and a brief, but peacefully quaint visit to the town in Avellino that Lorenzo's grandfather abandoned. The film sprinkles overt and subliminal tributes to Italy's beauty and accomplishments, from the unusual claim that American football was invented in Florence to invocations of love juxtaposed against Leonardo's art, Ferrara's architecture, and Florence's landscape. The film also includes contemporary Italian music and celebrations of Carnevale, showing young people honoring traditions while defining and engaging in their own youth culture and styles.
In this milieu, the protagonist falls in love at first sight and the audience encounters a moving love story with powerful chemistry, as well as a sexually delightful cooking scene. The target of his affection, Paola Angelini (played by actress Violante Placido), epitomizes contemporary women in Italy. She seeks the identity and independence that comes with education. Meanwhile she comports herself with stunningly natural concepts of beauty and a respect for family, cultural traditions, and local customs. Ironically Placido is the real life daughter of Simonetta Stefanelli who played Apollonia in the landmark film "The Godfather" in which she represented for Americans the classic ideal of nostalgic Italian beauty.
Antonio Primavera, an endearing gold-chained fossil reminiscent of another era in demeanor and mannerisms, is confrontational, yet sympathetic and loving towards his son. Ironically, Sorvino's character is the Italian ethnic who felt the need to identify only with America while living out an ostentatiously Americanized notion of Italian ethnicity. He looked at Italy as a country you leave and "Italian" as an identity you leave behind. At best, he saw the "Old Country" as a digression from the reality of daily life in America and a diversion from a natural progression that comes from making one's home in America. He saw no value in his son staying there.
World-renown actor, Giancarlo Gianinni plays Felice, the protagonist's granduncle (his grandfather Lorenzo's brother-in-law), who leads the young Lorenzo through the grandfather's small town in Avellino. Felice is a metaphorical Virgil escorting the young Lorenzo as Dante through what "Just Do It Americans" would consider Purgatory---complaisant complacency without opportunity. Purgatorio is an appropriate metaphor since Lorenzo must find catharsis for himself and his grandfather by reconciling with the past. Felice is his guide, figuratively and literally walking Lorenzo through the history, complete with sites and family artifacts.
Here is the film's most wonderfully ironic twist: Before going to Italy, the grandson assumed he must compensate for his grandfather's regrets, mistakes, and failures by working hard in the United States to become a socio-economic success. Now in Italy, he learns his grandfather was also intensely remorseful on matters of the heart.
Abruptly, the grandson finds himself confronting a modern-day version of his grandfather's dilemma: going to America for opportunity, or remaining in Italy for love, could each amount to the same wrong, no-win decision the grandfather had to make.
Having returned to Italy, Lorenzo Primavera is challenged to weigh the bad-luck and fatalism of his grandfather's culture (that also pervades the Italian football team with more levity), against the optimistically hopeful American mantra contending "We make our own breaks." Lorenzo Primavera feels a tension over whether to believe we actually 'make our own breaks' or passively succeed from good or bad luck. This is the somberly cerebral undertone cutting across the film's various subplots.
The title of the film itself is an upbeat catchphrase for the protagonist's heart-wrenching dilemma. The dual meaning of "ciao" in the title captures the protagonist's choice: to affectionately return to America or bid it a fond farewell, as a young man in love leaves his roots there to reconnect with the deeper soil and soul where it all began. In either case, "Ciao" as hello or goodbye is an "Ode to America" (to a land of opportunity), which at one point made Italy something to leave and now something to return to.
Ultimately, Lorenzo and his girlfriend each make their decision autonomously The audience accepts and embraces the decision Lorenzo ultimately makes. The filmmakers should also be applauded for the way the decision is revealed and the scene is rendered to the audience.
All of the film's elements exemplify much of the brilliance of the movie. It's sophisticated yet earthy and humanistic, capturing what being Italian is really all about.
FIERI is an international organization of students and young professionals that strives to preserve Italian culture, foster networking opportunities, encourage higher education through scholarships and mentoring, and promote positive images of the Italian heritage.