By Tim Byrnes
If anyone is qualified to run the Lavazza Italian Film Festival, it’s definitely Elysia Zeccola.
Zeccola has been Palace Cinemas’ National Festival Director since 2010, but both Italian and films run in her blood, with Palace Cinemas founded by her father Antonio Zeccola. “I feel like I’m pretty qualified since I started working in the cinemas when I was 12 years old and have worked there ever since,” laughs Elysia. “Every weekend and every school holiday I worked in the cinemas and watched films around the clock, and live and breathe film.”
The Zeccola family originates from Muro Lucano, a city situated in Southern Italy. “It’s a really beautiful, mountainous region which is really un-touristy,” she describes. “People walk past you in a small town like that and they stare at you like, ‘Who are you? Who are you related to?’ They know you must be related to someone in the town to be there; tourists don’t just randomly walk through towns like that.”
The festival has been held annually since 2000, after Antonio Zeccola noticed a lack of festival life for Italian films. Since then, the Lavazza Italian Film Festival has brought the best of the country’s films to Australian audiences, with attendance growing considerably every single year.
Opening the festival is the winner of the best comedy at the Italian Golden Globe Awards (Globo d’Oro) Let Yourself Go!, starring Toni Servillo from the Oscar-winner The Great Beauty. “It’s a screwball comedy, light-hearted, and a bit of a mad-caper around Rome. It’s about a psychologist, who’s very grumpy and set in his ways, and he’s prescribed to exercise after being unwell. There at the gym he meets a zesty personal trainer, a Spanish girl, who takes him on a wild caper around Rome. It’s good fun!”
A diverse selection of films will feature across the festival enticing audiences with the best Italian films of the last 12 months, many fresh from film festivals in Rome, Venice, and Cannes. A new feature of the festival sees films screening in competition, with a jury selecting a film to award, and the director receiving a cash prize. And actress and festival ambassador Greta Scacchi of Presumed Innocent, The Player, and Looking For Alibrandi fame will present a Q&A session for her latest film, Tenderness.
“There’s a lot of amazing films in the festival. There’s a big, diverse range of comedies, dramas, and gorgeous documentaries,” Elysia says. “Sicilian Ghost Story is a really chilling festival highlight that screened in Cannes. It blends mafia themes and the supernatural. And Sea Dreaming Girls is a documentary about these nonnas who live in the mountains in Northern Italy, and they’ve never seen the sea. They do a fundraising drive to try and raise money to hire a bus to go see the sea for the first time. It’s really gorgeous.”
Closing the festival is Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning Life Is Beautiful, which celebrates its 20 year anniversary. “It’s got a special place in a lot of people’s hearts. I think Roberto Benigni is amazing, and that film was just special. It was amazing when he won the Oscar for it. Climbing every seat on the way up. And making this hilarious speech where he’s like, ‘I want to make love to everyone in the room’,” she laughs.
As the Lavazza Italian Film Festival continues to grow, so too does the Italian film industry; something Zeccola has noticed in her travels and pursuit of the best films. “I noticed in Cannes this year there was quite a few Italian films; Fortunata, Pure Hearts, and Sicilian Ghost Story were three of the key Italian films screening in Cannes this year. There just seems to be some really wonderful films being made. And the Box Office in Italy was up last year. The top two performing films in the Italian Box Office were both Italian films. So Italians do support their own industry and see their own films quite a lot.”
Lavazza Italian Film Festival runs nationally 12 September – 25 October. For more details, visit the official site.
