Italian Film Festival 2022

The Italian Film Festival in Scotland celebrates the work of both established auteurs as well as emerging directors from Italian cinema.

This year's festival takes place in five Scottish independent cinemas between 20 and 29 May. We’ll be at Edinburgh’s Filmhouse, Glasgow Film Theatre, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Aberdeen’s Belmont Filmhouse and Inverness’ Eden Court.

The programme is curated by Dr Pasquale Iannone, Lecturer in Film Studies at the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures.

Pasquale will introduce selected screenings.

I’ve got a long-held association with the Italian Film Festival, stretching back to the early 2000s, when I spent several years working in various roles (from print driver to interpreter to Q&A host). It’s been a real honour to serve as director of the festival since 2018.

What's on

This year’s programme takes audiences from Rome to Calabria, Trieste to Sicily, Sardinia to Naples.

There are family dramas, atmospheric noirs, dazzling comic book adventures, neo-westerns, historical biopics, offbeat fables and much more.

Most of the titles are either UK or Scottish premieres, including the opening film, Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco.

The retrospective screenings include a tribute to the late Italian film icon Monica Vitti and a centenary celebration of the great political filmmaker Francesco Rosi.

For 2022, I’ve put together a diverse selection of titles, a range of different genres and registers, covering as much of the peninsula as possible: from the awe-inspiring 1960s Calabrian landscapes of Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco to the sleek, noir-infused modern cityscapes of Michela Cescon’s Blue Eyes.
We’ve got recent high-profile award-winners from directors Jonas Carpignano (A Chiara) and Mario Martone (The King of Laughter) as well as a bold re-imagining of one of Italy’s most famous comic books, Diabolik from the Manetti brothers.