Movie Screening: Italo by Alessia Scarso – at Friendship Heights Village Center

The Italian Cultural Institute, in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Society, presents a screening of Italo by Alessia Scarso. Italo was part of the 25th Edition of the New Italian Cinema Events (N.I.C.E) Festival and was presented in Washington, DC in November 2015.

N.I.C.E. plays an important role in the dissemination of Italian cinema abroad, with particular attention given to Italian younger authors, who are as original as they are often unknown. Over the years, the interest toward Italian cinema has gradually increased, and N.I.C.E.’s rich array of films has been featuring a variety of “genres”: from art-house films to experimental cinema. The mission of this festival is to represent, above all, a showcase for newcomers, but also an opportunity to reaffirm with even greater strength its metropolitan and community identity, while preserving its artistic quality and international connotation. 

SYNOPSIS: The film, based on a true story, recounts the sad childhood of young Meno (Vincenzo Lauretta) following the loss of his mother. Italo, a stray dog that reached the Sicilian village of Scicli in a Fall morning, follows him home and wreaks havoc in the city, where the Mayor, Antonio (Marco Bocci), Meno’s father, issued a City order to catch all stray dogs. Antonio tries to face widowhood by diving into his work, but he is not able to deal with his son, nor with the attention he receives from Laura (Elena Radonicich), Meno’s beautiful teacher. Through a series of fun and serious events, Italo will be the one helping making things right.

Director: Alessia Scarso
Italy, 2015, 104 minutes
Film in Italian with English subtitles

ALESSIA SCARSO was born in Modica (Sicily) and she graduated in film editing at the “Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia” in Rome. She worked as an editor and post-production coordinator for investigative journalism, films and documentaries. She directed several commercials and institutional documentaries, and she debuted as a film director with Uninstalling Love, a short film that won several awards. She signed the editing of the film Come non detto, produced by Moviemax Media Group and Italo, which was presented at the 2014 Taormina Film Fest, is her first feature film.