(April 26, 2016) In May, Greece will also be paying homage to Ettore Scola. The great Italian filmmaker who recently passed away will be the star of a series film screenings organised by the Italian Cultural Institute, which has already screened “How Strange to be Name Federico” and “The New Monsters” in April. The film screenings are expected to continue in May: “The Family” (1987) on May 9th, a comedy shot almost entirely inside an apartment which tells the story of Carlo’s bourgeois family from the day of his baptism until the celebration of his eightieth birthday. With masterful elegance, Scola was not limited to narrating the family’s private affairs; shot entirely inside the family’s house he allows us to glance through the windows at the passing of eighty years of events taking place in Italian society. On May 9th the screenings end with “The Dinner” (1998), another film shot almost entirely in interior spaces, more precisely inside a restaurant. Each table, albeit contiguous to other tables, lives quite different situations. The dinner guests often at odds with each other, conceal their personalities filled with hope, needs, difficulties and illusions. It is the fresco of composite humanity and varied, skilfully painted with a pinch of irony and bitterness from the expert director, Scola.
