The Cinecultist's Weekly Reperatory Pick: Molte Bene Edition

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema
Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center

For the seventh year running, the Film Society at Lincoln Center brings New York audiences some of the best new films Italy has to offer with their series "Open Roads." The program this year includes selections by a whole range of filmmakers, from established ones like Mario Monicelli (who just turned 92!), to the new guard who are making more "independent" work. Just some of the movies showing over the next week are Caravaggio, a biopic about the infamous Renaissance painter, Primo Levi's Journey, a documentary following the writer and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi as he returns to Auschwitz and Billo, about a young Senegalese man trying to break into the Italian fashion industry. In particular, we're curious to see the wonderful director Emir Kusturica (Black Cat, White Cat) from Sarajevo getting in front of the lens in Secret Journey. Tickets for the films cost $11 and can be purchased online or at the box office.

Other movie happenings of note this weekend include two intriguing selections at Film Forum—photographer Bruce Weber's documentary about jazz legend Chet Baker Let's Get Lost is screening with a new 35mm print, and the Romanian movie 12:08 East of Bucharest is getting a run. In case you didn't know, after this year's Cannes, Romanian cinema is the new black. The IFC Center is showing Mala Noche, Gus Van Sant's first film which he made in '85 and has never been released for home viewing.

Finally, just as school is letting out, the midnight movie this weekend at the Sunshine is Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School. As Thorton Melon would say, "Now that's what I call biology!"

[Pictured: Still from Primo Levi's Journey directed by Davide Ferrario.]