PROGRAM

Thursday May 29

6.30pm VMH Playhouse at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center
Opening of the first International Documentary Festival of Florence in New York

7pm VMH Playhouse
Lonely Boy by Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor, (Canada, 1962, 26 min.)
A rare look behind the scenes of Paul Anka's skyrocketing career, exposing the inner workings of the '60s music industry with candid revelations by Anka and his manager.


Friday May 30

5pm VMH Playhouse
Political Activism – Chronicles of Red Tuscany by Hugues Le Paige (Belgium, 2005, 86 min.)
An intimate study of four friends who have been active in their local Communist Party for two decades. After the dissolution of the party, each of them makes a different life choice.

6.45pm VMH Playhouse
Losing The Thread by Jonathan Nossiter (Italy/USA, 2000, 56 min.)
A portrait of the iconoclast Florentine artist Lorenzo Pezzatini and his obsession with the 'thread', the Leitmotiv of his artistic work.

8pm Food and wine tasting at Snug Harbor Cultural Center
A gourmet break between film screenings. This is a unique opportunity to taste typically regional wines such as Chianti, Brunello, and Sangiovese.

9pm VMH Playhouse
Ellis Island Tales by Robert Bober (France, 1980, 120 min.)
The first part of the film paints a picture of daily life on Ellis Island through which 16 million Europeans passed between 1892-1924. The second part presents eyewitness accounts of people who passed through Ellis Island.

Saturday May 31

3pm VMH Playhouse
Un petit monastère en Toscane by Otar Iosseliani (France, 1988, 54 min.)
Georgian filmmaker Iosseliani visits an Augustine order near Montalcino. He ends up showing us how many different worlds can co-exist in one small corner of Tuscany: the Middle Ages, consumerism and pagan peasant rituals.

5pm VMH Playhouse
The Planetary Man by Federico Bondi (Italy, 2005, 80 min.)
A meditation on peace based on the intellectual journey of Ernesto Balducci (1922-1992), a subversive member of the religious Piarist Order, whose idea of the 'planetary man' presents a new humanism.

6.45pm VMH Playhouse
Brooklyn Bridge by Ken Burns (USA, 1981, 58 min.)
Renowned US documentary maker Ken Burns captures the dramatic story of the larger-than-life men who imagined and built the Brooklyn Bridge, a symbol of American vitality and promise. With Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur Miller, Richard Rescia and Austin Stevens.

8pm Food and wine tasting at Snug Harbor Cultural Center
A gourmet break between film screenings. This is a unique opportunity to taste typically regional wines such as Chianti, Brunello, and Sangiovese.

9pm VMH Playhouse
Profile of a Peace Parade by David Loeb Weiss (USA, 1967, 52 min.)
Film on Hiroshima Day (August 6, 1966) with six cameras, this film captures the mood of marchers and hecklers converging in midtown Manhattan.

Followed by: Lost Book Found by Jem Cohen (USA, 1996, 37 min.)
A street vendor finds a notebook filled with observations about places, events and objects. Shot in five years on the streets of New York, this film is a reflection on the metropolis with its fragmented stories.

9pm The Neptune Stage / Open Air
The Last Victory by John Appel (The Netherlands, 2003, 88 min.)
Every year, 100,000 people gather in Siena for 'Il Palio', a colorful, spectacular horse race between the city's 17 neighborhoods. The film follows the hopes and dreams of the Civetta neighborhood, which has not won since 1979; the stakes are high.


TICKETS AND VENUE

Tickets for the IDFFF are free and can be ordered from info@thefgf.org, by calling 718-425-3509 and at the VMH Playhouse box office: Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, www.snug-harbor.org.


ABOUT THE FITZGERALD FOUNDATION OF FLORENCE

The New York edition of the International Film Festival of Florence is an initiative of the Fitzgerald Foundation of Florence (FFF), a non-profit organization established in New York with the principal aim of fostering cultural exchanges between Italy and the United States to strengthen the traditional bonds between the two countries. More information: www.thfgf.org