The San Diego Italian Film Festival Presents: Notti Magiche

Directed by Paolo Virzì | 125 minutes

The latest movie from Paolo Virzì is a sparkling comedy disguised as a murder mystery and bittersweet film industry satire set in the early 1990s, the tail end of Italian cinema’s golden age, when neorealism and commedia all’italiana gave way to a culture of excess, greed, and artistic stagnation. When a famous film producer is found dead in the Tiber river, suspicion falls on three young screenwriters who, when they are hauled in for questioning, recount their wild adventures navigating Rome’s declining film industry. Riveted with winking references to Italian cinema legends, with a melancholy eye on the past and an exhausted one on the present, Magical Nights is Virzì’s loving yet irreverent glance back to the so-called good old days.

Attendees will also enjoy a screening of Vale la Pena (15 minutes) by Lorenzo Marinelli. The short is one of the twenty finalists of our new Short Film Competition.