A five-day mini film festival to mark the occasion of the Italian presidency of the European Union opened at the Alliance Francaise in Accra last Monday.

Dubbed Italian Film week, the programme, which will be presented by Comitato Dante Alighieri and the Alliance Francaise in collaboration with the Italian and French Embassies in Accra, is also aimed at promoting the prospective strategies for the formation of an “European Culture” in the diversity of existing cultures and languages.

Films to be screened with English sub-titles during the festival are Amarcord, La Vita e Bella, Lamerica, La Stanza Del Figlio and Aida.

Directed by Frederico Fellini, Amarcord is a poignant and semi-autobiographical tale with a dream-like quality that combines sharply drawn memories with engaging fantasy.

A proud recipient of numerous awards, Amarcord also takes a careful aim at fanatics while tackling the prickly issue of the emergence of fascism with a family full of coarse, pathetic, colourful, clever and cranky characters.

Roberto Beningi’s La Vita e Bella is a story of a comical character as he arrives in the Tuscon town of Arezzo in 1939 with the intention of opening a bookshop. He falls in love with a young school teacher only for his happiness to be shattered when they find themselves in a Nazi concentration camp.

Set in Albania and directed by Gianni Amelio, Lamerica, which won the Academy Awards for the Best Foreign Language Film in 1994 is about the political distractions in Europe.

It focusses on problems that has left millions of people without hope in a world that has been cruelly divided into rich and poor. Lamerica is a movie that will definitely soften the hearts of people while changing the perception and attitude of people towards refugees.

La Stanza del Figlio is an extraordinary drama that tells the harrowing story of a once tight-knit happy family having come to terms with a devastating loss and how they struggle to get on with their lives. It is indeed, a touching, calm and human movie that succeeds in striking in the heart of all viewers.

Aida, an opera in four acts directed by Giuseppe Verdi was composed to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. It has since become Verdi’s best work and a challenge to the vocal, musical and interpretative resource of every opera house.

In recent times, it has become a favourite among ambitious stage directors who seek to give it a more topical and contemporary setting. Aida features Maria Chiara, Luciano Pavarotti, Chorus/Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, chorus master Giulio Bertola and conductor Lorin Maazel among others.

The Film Week is set to bring a temporary respite to film lovers in Accra who are constantly bombarded with half-baked films and inexperienced/boring actors and actresses starring in films that follow the same themes, subjects and style.