THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS
(Le Otto Montagne)
Felix Van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch
Belgium, Italy, 2022 – 147 minutes, Color
Winner of the Cannes Jury Prize, The Eight Mountains is a film that demands and rewards the big screen. In northwest Italy’s spectacular Aosta Valley region, two boys—city mouse Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and local herder Bruno (Alessandro Borghi)—craft a friendship around their differences during Pietro’s summer visits with his family. Over the decades and into manhood the relationship has its literal ups and downs, but its basis is like the mountain glaciers that, as Pietro’s father says, store history as they move. This saga of friends as brothers, and the dreams of fathers, is adapted from Paolo Cognetti’s well-loved novel with care for the characters’ internal lives and for the massive environs that so impact them. The mountains’ enfolding grandeur and constancy sustains Bruno and challenges Pietro until gradually those tables turn.—Judy Bloch
GOODNIGHT
(E Buonanotte – Storia di un ragazzo senza sonno)
Massimo Cappelli
Italy, 2022 – 100 minutes, Color
There aren’t enough hours in the day for Luca. He loves going to clubs, spending time on social networks, watching TV, playing video games, and betting. These activities leave no time for his studies, playing the piano, or lending a hand at his father’s business. Like so many people, Luca finds himself caught between what he wants to do and what he should do. Frustrated with that situation, Luca calculates that sleep consumes valuable hours of precious time, up to two-thirds of one’s lifetime. If only there was a way he could skip sleeping and avoid all that downtime. When Luca finally achieves his goal, his life morphs into an eternal day in which he can pursue his interests to the fullest extent possible. But can there be too many hours in a day? This engaging comedy explores that concept.—Various sources
HYPERSLEEP
(Ipersonnia)
Alberto Mascia
Italy, 2022 – 103 minutes, Color
In a frighteningly plausible near future, government prison reform has led to inmates being kept in suspended animation, awakened quarterly to be “realigned with reality” and confronted about their crimes by psychologists. And so we meet Dr. David Damiani (Stefano Accorsi) at his job interrogating a man sentenced for murder. Damiani is trying to avoid unpleasant memories, those of his wife’s suicide. Although he has met a striking new woman, Viola (Katsiaryna Shulha), his life soon becomes upended again when he is informed that his contract at the prison will not be renewed. As he works with one last patient, everything goes wrong. The inmate knows more about Damiani’s life than he should. Director Alberto Mascia sends us on a journey where we must decide what is real. Is Damiani a hero or villain? Who is controlling the narrative? And, ultimately, are we all sleeping?—Dave Nuttycombe
This year’s Filmfest DC is an in-person event. Films will be shown in movie theaters. Also, a mission of Filmfest DC is to make our lives more connected and meaningful. The new films from around the globe in this year’s Filmfest DC will delight, enlighten, and entertain you…and are best enjoyed when shared with other people. We invite you to join us.