Arts Listings

The Best of Italian Cinema in San Francisco

Friday November 16, 2007

The New Italian Film Festival, playing this week at the Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco through Sunday, offers a rich course on the best new filmmakers in Italian film. After this weekend, most of these films will likely never be shown again with English subtitles or ever be released on DVD in the United States.  

On Friday, the films shown are Shelter (6:45 p.m.), a story about a lesbian couple finding a teenage boy hiding in their luggage after a trip to Tunisia, and The Ball (9:15 p.m.), about a boy grappling with growing up with his free spirit single mother.  

Saturday’s movies are One Out of Two (2 p.m.), about a confident lawyer hospitalized with a mysterious illness; Italian Dream (4:30), a suspense and romance story; Me, and the Other (7 p.m.), in which a man suspects a friends of being a terrorist, and Salt Air (9:15 p.m.), about a prison counselor who discovers a new client is his father.  

The festival will close on Sunday with Any Reason Not to Marry? (noon), a movie about a young couple planning a wedding, Shelter (2:30 p.m.), and Flying Lessons (5:15 and 9:15 p.m.), a tale of two Roman teenagers traveling to India. The winning film of the festival, determined by the audience, will be announced at the City of Florence Awards reception at 8 p.m.  

Tickets $11, 1 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco. www.sffs.org or (925) 866-9559.