The Cleveland Italian Film Festival 2025 is showcasing award winning films from Italy Sept. 18 – Sept. 25, 2025 at the Cedar Lee Theater and Atlas Cinemas Great Lakes. All films are shown on Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m. with the support of Italian Tours & Travel by Diana and media sponsor La Gazzetta Italiana.
Sunday, Sept. 4, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. Michelin starred Chef Dante Boccuzzi kicks off the film festival with a five-course gourmet dinner highlighting the cuisine of Southern Italy. $135 pp (includes different wines with each course, gratuity & tax). For Reservations call: 216-456-8117.
Opening Night Film: Please call 216-456-8117 for tickets and information. All films have English subtitles.
Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025
“There’s Always Tomorrow” C’e ancora domani
7:30 p.m. Cedar Lee Theater
Winner of six Italian Oscars and 23 wins and 21 nominations, “C’e ancora domani” is one of the highest grossing films in Italy. Set in post-war Rome, a wife and mother dreams of a better future and confronts the patriarchy head on. The film strikes a delicate balance between laughs and tears as it follows Delia, a hardworking woman who endures the obnoxious behavior of her husband. Award winning actress Paula Cortellesi made her directorial debut with this film and it took Italy by storm.
Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025
“KIDNAPPED” Rapito
7:30 p.m. Atlas Cinemas Great Lakes
This epic, moving film is based on a true story and garnered 19 wins and 16 nominations including Italy’s Oscar, the David di Donatello in several categories, and the Cannes Palm D’Or and Italy’s Golden Globes.
Veteran director Marco Bellocchio carefully unwinds a shocking true story of a little Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara of Bologna, who was kidnapped by the Vatican. As a baby, a servant of the house believing him at the point of death while ill, secretly baptized him to save his soul. A few years later, the servant relayed what she had done to someone in the church. This news reached the Vatican and it sent their soldiers, unannounced, to the house telling the shocked parents that Edgardo had been baptized and could not live with them and was to be raised by nuns.
This happened during the time of the Pope/King when the Pope ruled the Papal States before the Unification in 1870. The incident became an international flashpoint highly criticized as his parents informed everyone they could. This film is an astute study of power; how it’s acquired and how it’s exercised by those who wield it.
Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025
“A World Apart” Un Mondo a Parte
7:30 p.m. Atlas Cinemas Great Lakes
In this delightful comedy, Professor Michele Cortese, after 30 years of teaching in Rome, began looking for a different teaching adventure. He managed to get assigned to a school in the heart of the Abruzzo National Park teaching a class composed of seven to 10-year-old children.
Being a city man, he arrives with moccasins on his feet, doesn’t understand the dialect and is confronted with a harsh climate and terrain in a very small village – a place where probably no teacher knowing the conditions would go. When the school is under pressure to close, due to lack of enrollment, they all band together in a comedic adventure.
“Un Mondo a Parte” won Best Comedy and Best Actress – Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists and Best Director – Comedy.
The Cleveland Italian Film Festival Film Festival is the first independent film festival in Northern Ohio to exclusively showcase Italian award-winning films in Cleveland area theaters since its inception in 2006.
