Movie buffs best get prepared: the Italian Film Festival is coming to town, bringing with it an engaging selection of films that celebrate Italian life in all its forms. The Cinema Italiano Festival, sponsored by Peroni, will kick off its Auckland leg later this month and taking the reigns once again is New Zealand’s favourite Italian — actor, director and playwright Paolo Rotondo — who has curated a line-up that’s all about amore, amore, amore.

“Love in all its forms continues to dominate Italian Cinema and is the theme we are celebrating,” Rotondo says. “Italian culture has always been synonymous with romantic love, but in 2018 we see an evolved expression of this. From the love of a father attempting to protect his son from the horrors of life in Life is Beautiful, to the complex love of conjoined twins in Indivisibili, to the love of a brutal and exquisite tradition of the ancient horse race of Palio, to the hilarious body swapping exploration of marital challenges in Moglie e Marito, love is at the centre of the Italian psyche.”

A quick look at the festival programme is enough to spur any film fans into booking tickets to get their dose of the passion, comedy and drama that the Italians are so famous for.

Cinema Italiano Festival will be taking place at Auckland’s Bridgeway Cinema from 30th August to 13th September 2018. For dates, bookings, tickets and more information, click here. To celebrate, we’re giving away one double pass to attend the opening night movie. Click here to enter. 

This competition has now closed.