VIVA ITALIA!

Nominated this year for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, this is an anthology of nine short, comic episodes by three major Italian directors. Often falling into black comedy. these vignettes deal with the subject of the sometimes cruel and self-centered nature of the Italian male. Many of Italy's top film personalities – Vittorio Gassman, Ornella Muti, Alberto Sordi and Ugo Tognazzi – bring life and humor to subject matter that is not always the subject of laughter. Ettore Scola's film “We All Loved Each Other So Much” was part of last year's Festival. Rarely used by American filmmakers, the anthology format remains popular in Italy. The Italian title for the film, “I Nuovi Mostri,” means “The New Monsters,” and is drawn from Dino Risi's 1962 feature “The Monsters” to which the present film is a sequel.