"Il Gioiellino (The Little Gem)"
A tightly-packed, detailed look at the corruption that dwells at the heart of corporate Italy, The Jewel is also a stunner to watch, shot by veteran director of photography Luca Bigazzi in a series of rich, sumptuously lit portraits of the powerful and their haunts.
The Jewel, another in a recent string of Italian films that take a close, unvarnished look at Italy's dark side (Il Divo, Gomorrah), is the second film by Andrea Molaioli, a frequent second director for Nanni Moretti. Molaioli's acclaimed debut The Girl By the Lake (shown at last year?s feStivale) was a meticulous existential murder mystery. The Jewel applies the same sort of forensics and deep character study to its tale closely based on the 2003 Parmalat scandal, an "Italian Enron" in which a multi-billion-dollar food conglomerate with close ties to the Christian Democrat party and the Catholic Church went bust and saw its CEO jailed.
Remo Girone stars as the lightly fictionalized CEO, Amanzio Rastelli, who inherits a cheese and sausage shop, turns it into a multinational concern and then drives it to the brink of destruction in an attempt to play the markets. When chief financial officer Ernesto Botta (played by the great Toni Servillo) convinces Rastelli to take the company public, the desperate ride to keep the company afloat leads to international fraud, suicide and ruin. An international scandal, done Italian style, all in a high mode of tragedy, makes human vice into high drama and an amazing morality play.
Admission: $9 - Cash Only
Location:
La Paloma Theater
471 South Coast Highway 101
Encinitas, CA 92024
Thursday, July 26 - 7:00 PM
For more information, please visit: www.sandiegoitalianfilmfestival.com
A tightly-packed, detailed look at the corruption that dwells at the heart of corporate Italy, The Jewel is also a stunner to watch, shot by veteran director of photography Luca Bigazzi in a series of rich, sumptuously lit portraits of the powerful and their haunts.
The Jewel, another in a recent string of Italian films that take a close, unvarnished look at Italy's dark side (Il Divo, Gomorrah), is the second film by Andrea Molaioli, a frequent second director for Nanni Moretti. Molaioli's acclaimed debut The Girl By the Lake (shown at last year?s feStivale) was a meticulous existential murder mystery. The Jewel applies the same sort of forensics and deep character study to its tale closely based on the 2003 Parmalat scandal, an "Italian Enron" in which a multi-billion-dollar food conglomerate with close ties to the Christian Democrat party and the Catholic Church went bust and saw its CEO jailed.
Remo Girone stars as the lightly fictionalized CEO, Amanzio Rastelli, who inherits a cheese and sausage shop, turns it into a multinational concern and then drives it to the brink of destruction in an attempt to play the markets. When chief financial officer Ernesto Botta (played by the great Toni Servillo) convinces Rastelli to take the company public, the desperate ride to keep the company afloat leads to international fraud, suicide and ruin. An international scandal, done Italian style, all in a high mode of tragedy, makes human vice into high drama and an amazing morality play.
Admission: $9 - Cash Only
Location:
La Paloma Theater
471 South Coast Highway 101
Encinitas, CA 92024
Thursday, July 26 - 7:00 PM
For more information, please visit: www.sandiegoitalianfilmfestival.com
