All roads lead to Rome

Italy’s legacy of art and culture comes under the spotlight in the eighth edition of the Italian Festival in Thailand, which starts tonight with a tribute to one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, Federico Fellini.
 The festival, which continues through the end of the year, focuses on several different aspects of Italian culture, including music, cinema, fashion, design, dance, performance, art and the latest in technology.

CINEMA

This evening, the Italian Embassy in Bangkok is hosting a screening of Fellini’s “La Strada” (“The Road”), a 1954 drama starring Anthony Quinn as a circus strongman who buys a young woman (Giulietta Masina) and takes her on tour. A love triangle then forms as she is drawn to the circus’ high-wire artist. It won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1956.
Tomorrow night, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand screens the romantic drama “Le Notti di Cabiria” (“Nights of Cabiria”), Fellini’s tale of a golden-hearted prostitute searching for true love. It also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was later adapted into the Broadway musical “Sweet Charity”.
More recent films will be on show from July 24 to 28 during the Italian Film Festival at SF World Cinema. The line-up has yet to be finalised, but it’s expected feature the most representative Italian movies from the past year or so. All screenings will be free have English and Thai subtitles.

MUSIC AND DANCE

I Solisti Veneti, the popular chamber orchestra that was founded by Claudio Scimone in 1959, wowed music lovers during their earlier performance in Bangkok. They return on July 16 at 7.30pm in the Four Season Hotel’s ballroom for a night of Italian baroque.
Jazz and soul singer Mario Biondi brings his band to Bangkok on July 30 for a session at Saxophone Pub near Victory Monument.
More classical music is coming on September 27 when the Orchestra Del Teatro Regio Di Parma performs a the Thailand Cultural Centre as part of the annaul International Festival of Dance and Music. The orchestra, which has backed many opera productions has been under the guidance of some the best conductors, including Riccardo Muti and Zubin Metha. The Bangkok concert will be conducted by Sergio Pellegrini and features Annamaria Dell’Oste and tenor Bruno Ribeiro.
 Hip-hop music and street dance moves mix with contemporary ballet as La Botega comes to Central Childlom in November. The company is a breeding ground of dancers coming from different backgrounds who share a strong inclination towards artistic research and contamination of styles.

FASHION, ART AND DESIGN

At 3.30 on Wednesday, the Crystal Design Centre’s ballroom hosts the talk “How Thai Design Steps Up to the International Market”, offering structured feedback on the Thai participation in the Milan Furniture Fair. It will offer ideas on how Thai designers’ competitiveness on the international markets can be enhanced.
Two days later at the same venue, editors from Casa Viva, Living ETC and Baan Lae Suan will share their views on the latest furniture and decoration trends showcased in Milan.
The Crystal Design Centre will also host the “Fashion Runway” on June 26. But instead of models strutting the catwalk, this show is all about furniture, with the latest collections from such luxury brands as Fendi, Cantori, Arper and Magis.
Plenty of glamour will be on show from July 11 to 28 in “Made in Italy: A Hundred Years of Italian Shoes and Bags” at Central Chidlom. It will feature more than 300 Italian fashion accessories linked to such celebrities as Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Angelina Jolie, Madonna and Lady Gaga. From the collection of Giorgio Forni, the exhibition includes outfits from such celebrated brands as Prada, Ferragamo, Dolce and Gabbana, Gucci, Versace, Ken Scott and Bottega Veneta.
Fine Italian artistry will be displayed in the show “Galileo Chini – Jewels of Decoration” from September 16 to 29 in Siam Paragon’s Lifestyle Hall. Born in 1873, Chini was one of the prominent members of the Italian Art Nouveau movement and was responsible for several of the paintings and decorations in the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall.
The show will feature a rare collection of newly rediscovered ceramic tiles, designed in the early 1920s by Chini for Terme (Spa) Berzieri of Salsomaggiore, Italy. It is being exhibited for the first time in Asia.
The exhibition takes place in parallel with the World Spa and Well-Being Convention at Impact Arena.
A living Italian artist will visit Bangkok in September for a workshop at Silpakorn University. He’s known simply as DEM, and examples of his bizarre and surreal graffitti can be found on city walls all over the the world.
The festival will also feature many seminars. Among them is “Italian Space Activities Cosmo- SkyMed for the User Community” on July 5 at 11.30 am at the Space Krenovation Park in Sri Racha, which looks at users’ perspectives of satellite earth observation. Closer to the ground will be “Primo Levi and the Idea of Human Dignity” at 2pm on August 1 at Chulalongkorn University, offering tentative interpretation of Levi’s message from a Buddhist prospective.

VIVA ITALIA
The Italian Festival continues through the end of the year with most events taking place between this month and September.
Find out more at www.ItalianFestivalThailand.com or www.Facebook.com/Italian|FestivalThailand2013.