OUR RETURN TO ITALY

Join us for a free screening and discussion on the film Our Return to Italy.
Presented by filmmakers Marylou & Jerome Bongiorno.

Thursday, August 8, 2024 at 7:00 P.M.

The Nutley Public Library is pleased to welcome back prior ECLAP-funded artists, Emmy-nominated, award-winning, husband and wife filmmakers Marylou &   Jerome Bongiorno. The duo, who speak at global and local venues, will screen their short fictional film Our Return to Italy, a story about an Italian-American patriarch who wants to uproot his multigenerational family winemaking business to Italy but hides the truth about his motives.

A discussion and Q&A will follow. No registration is required. Light refreshments will be served. For additional information and to view the trailer please visit bongiornoproductions.com.

Our Return to Italy (USA, short, fiction, 25 min, English): Francesco Santangelo’s family is deeply rooted in his New Jersey winery but he’s decided to uproot the entire family and move operations to where he was born in Lombardy, Italy. His granddaughter Emma knows nothing about the move, although she’ll be thrilled because she’s a budding documentary filmmaker whose life is steeped in famous Italian films. But the rest of the winemaking family is up in arms. His daughter Anna, the vineyard botanist, is at her wit’s end over the relocation, because she’s also dealing with a very rocky marriage.  Her “weekend comedian” husband Rick, the vineyard accountant, is frantic over the dwindling finances and thinks moving to Italy is like “contracting the plague.” And his niece Giovanna, the vineyard chemist, is dazed by the move, anxious about being an African-Italian-American woman in a same-sex relationship in Italy. The big catastrophe will come when the family finds out the real reason for Francesco’s sudden and seismic return to Italy.

Starring:
Robert Cuccioli, Mark Giordano, Grace Julianna, Rita Pietropinto Kitt, and Victoria Wallace

This program is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts / Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts and administered by the Essex County Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs.

For questions and additional information, please contact Michelle Albert at albert@nutley.bccls.org.