Three Italian films are in the
running for the Golden Lion at this year's Venice Film Festival,
giving Italy a chance to have a two-year winning streak for the
Lido's highest prize.
Following Italy's win last year for the film Sacro GRA,
this year's competition from Italy unfolds between Mario
Martone's drama Il Giovane Favoloso (The Fabulous Young Man)
starring Elio Germano, a screen adaptation of the book Black
Souls directed by Francesco Munzi, and Saverio Costanzo's Hungry
Hearts, starring Adam Driver and Alba Rohrwacher.
Martone's film centers on Neapolitan poet Giacomo Leopardi,
a writer born in 1798 who was known for his legendary pessimism,
played here by Germano in the spirit of an anti-conformist
rebel.
Hungry Hearts takes place in New York City, where a couple
battles over their son's diet.
In the film, the mother, played by Rohrwacher, insists on
vegan fare, but the father, played by Driver, has to intervene
when their son eventually becomes ill.
The third film in the Italian lineup, Black Souls, tackles
the contemporary state of the Calabrian mafia, known as the
'Ndrangheta.
Black Souls is based on the eponymous book by Gioacchino
Ciriaco, and tells the tale of a farmer's three sons, each of
whom crosses paths with the life of crime in a different way.
Luigi is an international drug trafficker, Rocco is an
adopted son from Milan who is also a businessman with Mafia
money, and the third and oldest brother Luciano stays home,
raising the family's goats.
Each of the three competing films is said to have a good
chance at the prize.
A win would place Italy halfway to another four-year
winning streak like the one from the heyday of 1960s Italian
cinema, when films by the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni and
Luchino Visconti took a Golden Lion home every year from 1963 to
1966.
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