The Italian Cultural & Community Center will present the 2019 Contemporary Italian Film Series, a monthly recurring event featuring recent releases from Italy screened in their original Italian with English subtitles. All the films will be Texas premieres.

Film schedule

• January 16: Fortunata (Lucky) - After the international success of Don’t Move, director Sergio Castellitto tells the story of a young mother (Jasmine Trinca). After the failure of her marriage, she is caught up in a daily struggle to realize her dream of opening a hair salon, trying to set herself free from her past and win independence and her right to be happy.
• February 20: Dove non ho mai abitato (Where I’ve Never Lived) - When an accident forces him to bed, old renowned architect Manfredi asks his only daughter Francesca to help him with the renovation of a lakeside villa. Francesca has quit the family firm long time ago to move to Paris but decides to accept to please her father and starts working with the man’s most trusted partner, charming 50-year-old Massimo. As the renovation of the villa progresses, the empathy between the couple builds up and when Manfredi suddenly passes away, Francesca and Massimo will finally face the true feelings they have for each other.
• March 20: Sono Tornato (I’m Back) - The war is over, his beloved Claretta is gone and everything seems changed. Apparently. Andrea Canaletti, a young documentarist with great ambitions but very few successes, happens to film accidentally the dictator’s return. Thinking he is a cosplay practitioner, Canaletti decides to shoot a documentary about him to be finally recognized as a filmmaker. Then the two start a surreal journey around Italy that takes them in TV shows and curious moments of confrontation with today’s Italian population. All of this makes the Duce’s figure popular again, up to the point he becomes a TV star. Thanks to such popularity, he believes he could rule the country again. What if he would be back for real?
• April 17: Euforia - Matteo is a young successful businessman, audacious, charming and energetic. Ettore is a calm, righteous, second grade teacher, always living in the shadows and still in the small town where they both grew-up. They are brothers but with opposite personalities. But life forces them back together and a difficult situation results in them getting to know and discover each other, in a vortex of fragility and euphoria.
• May 22: Troppo Napoletano (From Naples with Love) - Ciro’s father, a popular Neapolitan singer, dies trying to stage dive during a performance. After this unfortunate episode, Ciro, usually blessed with a very healthy appetite, stops eating altogether. His mother Deborah, extremely worried about the boy’s health, brings him to Tommaso, a shy and clumsy child psychologist, who discovers that Ciro’s troubles also stem from his first crush on his beautiful classmate Ludovica. Soon doctor and patient make a deal: Tommaso will help Ciro to get Ludovica’s attention, and, in return, Ciro will help make Deborah fall in love with Tommaso.
• June 19: Sconnessi (Disconnected) - Ettore Ranieri, famous writer and guru of the analogical world decides to spend a few days with his family in their house in the mountains to celebrate his birthday. However, instead of enjoying this time together, everyone is always on their digital devices checking apps and emails. Everything immediately changes when all of a sudden, the internet connection disappears making all the guest panic. Being disconnected will force everyone to really talk to each other, to face their own insecurities and “reset” their relationships.
• July 17: Storie Sospese (Suspended Stories) - A construction company hires Thomas, a professional rock climber, to supervise the building of a motorway tunnel in a small village in the south of Italy. The locals, led by a surveyor and a schoolteacher, accuse the company of carrying on the works not caring about the growing environmental risks these are causing. Thomas must choose sides when Alessandro, one of his colleagues and friends, gets severely injured because of an accident on the worksite: will he expose the company and lose his job, or stay quiet betraying his friend and the local community?
• September 19: Il Tuttofare (The Handyman) - Antonio is a trainee lawyer who dreams of joining his mentor’s prestigious firm. But Salvatore “Toti” Bellastella, the Prince of the Forum, is also an exploitative tyrant! He asks Antonio any kind of task: from being his assistant to driver, from paralegal to personal cook! When Antonio brilliantly passes the bar, he gets the offer of becoming a partner in the firm, but there is still one condition: he must marry Isabel, Toti’s lover, an Argentinian girl who needs the Italian citizenship. It looks like just another little “favor” for his boss. So Antonio accepts… and he’s really in a sea of trouble.