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Italian immigrant tries to become a member of Swiss society but fails as a waiter and even as a chicken plucker. He then becomes involved with shady wealthy character and tries to hide his Italian identity. He refuses to give up no matter how awful his situation.

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A restored version of Bread and Chocolate commemorates Nino Manfredi
Silvia Simonetti – L’Italo-Ameticano – May 14, 2014

‘Bread and chocolate’ usually makes people think of their youth, their home, and family traditions dear to the heart.

On the contrary, the comedy-drama Pane e Cioccolata (Bread and Chocolate), released in 1974 by Italian director Franco Brusati, leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. And yet, it is undoubtedly a masterpiece of Italian cinema, starring the late actor and director Nino Manfredi (1921 – 2004).

The movie describes the misadventures of a young Italian immigrant to Switzerland in the 1970s, who loses his work permit but refuses to give up a life of opportunity, even if far from his home and family. Hilarious and moving at the same time, the film is a portrait of Italy and the Italians as they looked like from abroad. Sadly, even if it was made over thirty years ago, those immigrants and their stories don’t look so unfamiliar after all.

Along with Alberto Sordi, Ugo Tognazzi, and Vittorio Gassman, Nino Manfredi is considered one the most talented performers and a symbol of the Commedia all’Italiana film genre, very popular in Italy in the second half of the 20th century.

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the movie and the 10th anniversary of Nino Manfredi’s death, a restored version of Bread and Chocolate was presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood on Friday, May 9.

The event was attended by representatives of the Italian Institutions, including the Consul General of Italy Giuseppe Perrone, the IIC acting director Massimo Sarti, the Trade Commissioner Carlo Bocchi, as well as by members of the local Italian American community and of the show business. Special guests were Erminia Manfredi, the actor’s widow, his daughter Roberta and her husband Alberto Simone, director, and his granddaughter Sarah Masten.

Introducing the screening, Erminia Manfredi – accompanied by journalist Silvia Bizio – underlined the importance of this particular film for Nino, due to the fact that it contributed to solidify his reputation at an international level but also that his own grandfather was an immigrant to the U.S.A. in the late 19th century. According to her, such a film will never become obsolete because people constantly migrate for one reason or another. As Nino Manfredi used to say: “Nowadays people emigrate from their soul.”

The Hollywood screening of Bread and Chocolate opened the celebrations Nino! Tribute to Nino Manfredi to be held in Italy and abroad throughout the year 2014. It was organized by Dalia Events and Onni, and sponsored by NIAF and Lavazza.

In Los Angeles, the initiative was promoted by the Consulate General of Italy, the Italian Cultural Institute, the Italian Trade Agency, the Italian Film Commission, Cineteca Bologna, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale.

It also featured a selection of Nino Manfredi’s most acclaimed films, screened at the IIC May 12 through 16, including Between Miracles (1971), Moon Shadow (1995) – director Alberto Simone, producer Roberta Manfredi, and Erminia Manfredi were in attendance -, The Treasure of San Gennaro (1966), We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974), and Bread and Chocolate (1974). In addition, the IIC hosted a preview of the photographic exhibition dedicated to the actor’s personal and professional life that will open in Rome next Fall.

1.99GB | 1h 51mn | 1021×552 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/626E241683029BD/Pane.e.Cioccolata.1974.restored.DVDrip.x264-Pedotriba.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/C0AEED00DF44497/Pane.e.Cioccolata.1974.Extras.rar

Note: Extras only subtitles in English as original DVD.

Language(s):Italian, German, English, French
Subtitles:English, French, Italian

The post Franco Brusati – Pane e cioccolata AKA Bread and Chocolate [+Extras] (1974) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis
This effective drama about crisis and change in an unorthodox family is directed by Franco Brusati, best known for his earlier Bread and Chocolate. Marta (Hella Petri) lives in a large country estate after retiring from her career as an opera singer. She is not alone. Two women live with her, Claudia (Eleonora Giorgi) and Anna (Mariangela Melato), of uncertain familial ties, though perhaps nieces. Claudia and Anna are established in a lesbian affair and both depend on Marta like daughters would depend on a mother. Marta’s brother Nicky (Erland Josephson) and his lover Picchio (David Pontremoli) arrive one day because Marta wants to take the two couples for a brief trip to Venice. Circumstances conspire to change those plans as one crisis after another, as well as a tragedy, make Claudia, Anna, and Nicky rethink their dependent behavior.
Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

On the film
Bergman’s icy world of guilts and repression transposed wholesale to sunnier Italian climes in Brusati’s curiously allusive Art Movie (a surprise Oscar contender). An extended family reunion becomes (inevitably) an exorcism of childhood for its reticent participants, two discreetly gay couples spellbound by an operatic matriarch; while the eternal abstracts – sex, death, religion and art – provide a hermetic seal of “class”, only pierced by a few sharp edges of pain and a single shaft of optimism.
TimeOut.com

…To Forget Venice go beyond formulas of Italian-style comedy, relying instead on a system of motifs with symbolic overtone… In an elegant, polished style Brusati evokes the twilight of an old bourgeois milieu in a manner reminiscent of Chekhov’s plays. Yet the end brings neither Bergmanian self-castigation nor Chekhovian sadness over “a life that has slipped by, and one would say it hardly begun.”
Mira Liehm, Passion and Defiance: Film in Italy from 1942 to the Present

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/14138A6A0EA79B5/Dimenticare_Venezia_%28Franco_Brusati%2C_1979%29.avi
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/A855FDDEADED566/Dimenticare_Venezia_%28Franco_Brusati%2C_1979%29.English.srt

Language:Italian
Subtitles:English

The post Franco Brusati – Dimenticare Venezia AKA To Forget Venice (1979) first appeared on Cinema of the World.