Movie Screening: Vecchi Pazzi

The Week of the Italian Language in the World promotes Italian as a great language of classical and contemporary culture. Every year the diplomatic and cultural network of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation chooses a theme for this initiative and organizes a series of events in the third week of October. In 2015, Under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic of Italy, for the XV edition of the Week of the Italian Language in the World – October 19 through October 24 – the chosen theme is “Italiano della musica, la musica dell’Italiano.”

As part of these series of events the Italian Cultural Institute and the Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, DC present a screening of the movie Vecchi Pazzi.

SYNOPSIS: “I am a soloist!” Vivi Ferrari indignantly exclaims when she is asked to sing in the amateur choir at her senior citizens’ residence in Ticino, Switzerland. The aged diva would never have given up her apartment and her theatre in Milan by choice. However, her daughter Alexa (Lucia Mascino) forced the issue when she learned of her mother’s serious illness, a long-kept secret. Everything that mattered in Vivi’s life has been taken from her: the stage and singing. But she has no choice and must accept her fate—for the time being.

Vecchi Pazzi, recently acclaimed at the 68th Festival del film Locarno, tackles the sensitive theme of aging in a light, but not silly way through the exuberant character of Vivi Ferrari (Andrea Jonasson), a soloist forced to give up with her professional singing career and move to a senior citizens’ home, where Vivi will reinvent herself and her career, create new friendships, and even find love.

It is a story that will make you laugh, move . . . and sing!

Director: Sabine Boss

Switzerland, 2015, 89 minutes
Film in Italian with English subtitles

LOCATION
Abramson Family Auditorium
New York University
1307 L St. NW
Washington, DC 20005