Circolo Italiano introduces Italian culture through film

The lights dim as the double projection screens light up with the night's black and white feature. The students settle into their seats as Circolo Italiano's weekly film viewing transforms Ballantine Hall, Room 304 from a classroom into a movie theater.\nIU's Circolo Italiano is a club celebrating Italian culture and language. The group meets at 7 p.m. every other Tuesday in Ballantine 004 for a night of Italian conversation and food. It also meets at 7 p.m. every Wednesday in Ballantine Room 304 to watch Italian-made movies. \n"Each semester is a different subject," said Fabio Benincasa, an Italian Ph.D. candidate. "It could be photographic about a specific director or a thematic subject. In this case there is a series of films that underline a continuity and discontinuity between fascism and neorealism." \nThe film series is presented in conjunction with professor Peter Bondanella's graduate seminar "Italian Cinema from Fascism to Neorealism." \nSarah Sinwell, a Ph.D. candidate in Communication and Culture, has been following the film series since its beginning in early September. \n"(Bondanella) is trying to argue in the class that there is a relationship between fascist films and the neorealist films," Sinwell said.\nAlthough the movies are being shown as part of a class, the viewings are free and open to the public. Most of the films include subtitles for those who are not fluent in Italian.\nSinwell does not speak Italian but she said she attends the film series weekly. \n"You get a chance to see films that you wouldn't ordinarily be able to see," she said. "Things that aren't common, that aren't readily available in America or even Italy." \nLast Wednesday's movie was Luchino Visconti's "Ossessione" (Obsession), the story of a roving young man, Gino, who falls in love with a married woman, Giovanna. Together the lovers plot her husband's murder and eventually face tragic cosmic consequences for what they have done. As an unsatisfied housewife, Giovanna surges with feelings of freedom and happiness induced by the murder and builds up her business, but Gino, used to being on the road, feels trapped and guilty. \nMargaret Klein, a senior majoring in Italian, said she likes the depiction of culture the foreign films present.\n"I think they captured the way that everyone talks about the way that Italy used to be and how it changed in the past 10 or 20 years," she said. "I like watching the films because they have thematic values about fashion and the way people treat each other."\nThis Wednesday, the group will show two films by director Roberto Rossellini, "L'uomo dalla croce" (The Man with a Cross, 1943), a film about a Catholic chaplain that underlines the common humanity between bolsheviks and fascists, and "Roma, citta aperta" (Open City, 1945), a film about a resistance leader tracked down by Nazis. \nFor more information about Circolo Italiano and a schedule of the films it shows, visit its Web site at www.indiana.edu/~frithome/undergrad/circolo.html or e-mail Circolo Italiano coordinator Giovanni Spani at gspani@indiana.edu. \n-- Contact staff writer Jenica Schultz at jwschult@indiana.edu.