The Los Angeles Italian Film Festival was founded in 1998 to promote Italian & Italian-American films. The festival’s goal is to build a creative bridge between the Los Angeles and the Italian filmmaking community by bringing Italy’s finest new films and promising talents to Hollywood. Founder, Luigi Campanile says, “The Los Angeles Italian Film Festival is an exciting opportunity to view some of the best new Italian & Italian-American films. Our mission is to provide our audience, whose love and passion for Italian Cinema is growing each year, with an outlet to experience on the big screen new Italian filmmakers as well as classic Italian Cinema.”
LAIFEST 2003 opens Tuesday, April 29th at the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood and runs through May 3rd. The festival opens with Edoardo Ponti’s directorial debut, “Cuori Estranei” (“Between Strangers”) starring Sophia Loren, Gerard Depardieu, Mira Sorvino, Deborah Kara Unger and Malcolm McDowell. A Q&A session will follow the screening with the director and several of the cast members.
The festival includes Italian language feature films, Italian-American feature films, short films, and documentaries and will close with Sylvester Stallone’s new film, Avenging Angelo, directed by Martyn Burke. The festival culminates with the Los Angeles Italian Film Awards dinner on May 4, 2003 at the Friar’s Club where Dante Ferretti, Joe Bologna, Paul Sorvino, Asia Argento and Bill Conti will be honored for their outstanding contributions to film in their fields.
For more information, visit the Los Angeles Italian Film Awards website.
