One of the most sensual paintings of the Italian Renaissance - Titian’s Danaë (1544–1545) from the Capodimonte Museum, Naples - is on view at the National Gallery of Art from July 1 to November 2, 2014 to celebrate the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU).

DATE: on view until November 2, 2014
LOCATION: National Gallery of Art
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A fascinating and singular figure in postwar art, Salvatore Scarpitta (1919–2007) created a powerful body of work that ranges from non-objective abstraction to radical realism. Featuring key recent additions to the Hirshhorn’s collection, this is the first solo presentation of Scarpitta’s work at an American museum in over a decade, and the first ever on the East Coast.

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DATE: on view until January 11, 2015
LOCATION: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
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This exhibition introduces the National Gallery of Art's initiative to recognize the importance and richness of Italy's art during the period from Neoclassicism to Futurism, spanning from 1800 to 1925. The exhibit consists of seventy prints, drawings, and illustrated books, divided into three sections.

The exhibition celebrates the occasion of Italy's Presidency of the Council of the European Union from July 1 through December 31, 2014.

DATE: on view until February 10, 2015
LOCATION: National Gallery of Art
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Emma and Antonio have been separated for nearly a year. Emma moves back to her mother's house with her two children. One night, gunshots are heard and the police is called. The movie, based on the novel by Melania Gaia Mazzucco by the same title, describes the events that took place 24 hours before that night.

Director: Ferzan Özpetek - Italy 2008 - 98 min.
Film in Italian with English subtitles

DATE: September 16, 2014 at 6:30PM
LOCATION: Embassy of Italy
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A conference by Fabrizio Vona, Superintendent, Superintendency of historical, Artistic and Ethno-anthropological Heritage for the city and the Museums of Naples and the Royal Palace in Caserta.

DATE: September 19, 2014 at 3:00PM
LOCATION: National Gallery of Art

Opening night of the Italian Film SUDestival in DC. During this event there will be a presentation of six feature films and the screening of three shorts - with English subtitles. This festival will reveal aspects of contemporary Italian reality through the lens of a talented new generation of filmmakers. With the participation of directors Fabio Mollo (Il sud è niente), Giuseppe Gigliorosso (Ore 18 in punto) and Gabriele Cecconi (Il seminarista).

This festival is organized in collaboration with AIFIC - American Initiative for Italian Culture (more info).

The Festival will take place at West End Cinema on September 23, 24 and 25. More info below.

DATE: September 19, 2014 at 6:30PM
LOCATION: Embassy of Italy
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The Italian Film SUDestival continues at George Washington University - Room 702 in the MELVIN GELMAN Library - with a panel discussion on Italian and American cinema with film critics, scholars and exhibit curators. Screening of the film trailers will be presented. Open to the public. Photo ID required.

This festival is organized in collaboration with AIFIC - American Initiative for Italian Culture (more info).

DATE: September 22, 2014 at 6:30PM
LOCATION: George Washington University

Fabrizio Sotti is an Italian jazz guitarist, composer, songwriter and producer. At ease in the bebop form, the Italian guitar virtuoso, producer and songwriter is also well versed in Jazz Fusion, Post-Bop, Blues, Soul, Hip Hop, R&B, and other forms of modern American music.

Sotti has played, recorded and/or collaborated with a number of diverse musical celebrities including Tupac, Q Tip, Gipsy Kings, Whitney Houston, Jennifer Lopez, Shaggy, Ghostface Killah, David Knopfler, Cassandra Wilson, John Patitucci, Roy Hargrove and many other well-known artists.

DATE: September 22, 2014
LOCATION: Blues Alley
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BUY TICKETS: 8PM - 10PM

Daniela Schächter started early her musical career: by her mid-teens was already performing publicly in Sicily, Italy, as well as doing studio session work. After her classical studies she moved to Boston MA as recipient of a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music, where she studied with Phil Wilson, Joe Lovano, Hal Crook and above all with Joanne Brackeen.

Daniela has won many prestigious awards, such as the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition 2005, The Sister in Jazz Competition 2002, the Betty Carters Jazz Ahead Competition 2002, the Terri Lyne Carrington Endowed Scholarship, the Tindari 93, Prize for the best jazz duo with her brother Davide and also she appeared in the Jazziz magazine collector's CD (July 2001).

DATE: September 23, 2014
LOCATION: Blues Alley
MORE INFO: click here
BUY TICKETS: 8PM - 10PM

This festival is organized in collaboration with AIFIC - American Initiative for Italian Culture (more info).

• Drama, Il Sud è Niente (South is nothing)
  Director: Fabio Mollo
  
  Grazia (Miriam Karlkvist) is seventeen years-old and lives in Reggio Calabria. When she was little, her brother Pietro (Giorgio Musumeci) emigrated in Germany and never came back. Her father, Cristiano (Vinicio Marchioni), told her that the brother is dead and does not want to talk about him. One night, after a disagreement with the father, Grazia thinks she saw her brother on the beach and decides to look for him. At the same time, Cristiano gets a visit from the local Mafioso boss, who demands his house and his business.
  Post-screening Q & A with director Fabio Mollo.
  Screening at 6:40PM
  
  BUY TICKETS: click here


• Comedy, Song 'e Napule (I'm from Naples)
  Director: Manetti Bros
  
  Paco (Allessandro Roja) is a refined, unemployed pianist, whose mother gets him a recommendation to enter the police corps. As a result of his total ineptitude, he is relegated to a judicial unit, until Commissioner Cammarota (Paolo Sassanelli) assigns him as a pianist to the group led by Lollo Love (Giampaolo Morelli). This popular singer has been hired to perform at the wedding of the daughter of the Somma Vesuviana boss, where the dangerous Camorra killer, O' Fantasma, is expected to be present. Paco, undercover, risks his life while playing music that he hates. But his life will take a turn…
  Screening at 8:40PM
  
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DATE: September 23, 2014
LOCATION: West End Cinema
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This festival is organized in collaboration with AIFIC - American Initiative for Italian Culture (more info).

• Comedy/Fantasy, Ore 18 in Punto (At precisely six o'clock)
  Director: Giuseppe Gigliorosso
  
  A dusty office out of Time holds the files containing the most significant events that will mark the life of human beings. Paride has been working there for more than three thousand years. At six o'clock on a rainy afternoon, Paride has an appointment with Nicola, a homeless man defeated and disillusioned. At the time of the appointment, at precisely 6 o'clock, however, a series of events upset their lives and those of many others. None of the events could be prevented and the certainties of this office crumble miserably. The beauty of life and its variations through love, friendship, powerful ideas, the joy of living, can be more powerful than fate. Destiny is not written in the stars, but it is built inside each of us because humans, regardless of how things evolve, "always" have choices.
  Post-screening Q & A with director Giuseppe Gigliorosso.
  Screening at 6:40PM
  
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• Drama, Il Seminarista (The Seminarian)
  Director: Gabriele Cecconi
  
  Italy 1959, Guido as a kid dreams of becoming a priest, and enters the Minor Catholic Seminary. Soon he realizes that to be a good seminarian one must submit to a rigid education and an inflexible hierarchical system, which demands obedience to regulations and authorities. They teach him a religious practice of rituals and prayers which prevails over solidarity, for him the most important of the commandments. Facing a reality different from the one he had imagined, which hides immoral behavior in order to save the reputation of the institution, he makes an important life choice.
  Post-screening Q & A with director Gabriele Cecconi.
  Screening at 8:40PM
  
  BUY TICKETS: click here

DATE: September 24, 2014
LOCATION: West End Cinema
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Italian saxophonist Marco Pignataro has performed extensively across Europe and the Americas in jazz festivals and international music venues. Marco is currently the Managing Director of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute (BGJI) a new program designed to foster creativity and musicianship through a variety of musical disciplines.

Together with Danilo Perez as Artistic Director, Marco leads the BGJI as a center of musical creativity that emphasizes personalized goal-setting and directed study, experiential and service learning with a special emphasis on nature and the environment, business acumen, and intensive access to world-class visiting artists.

DATE: September 24, 2014
LOCATION: Blues Alley
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BUY TICKETS: 8PM - 10PM

This festival is organized in collaboration with AIFIC - American Initiative for Italian Culture (more info).

• Thriller, The Litium Conspiracy
  Director: Davide Marengo
  
  A taut thriller in the John Grisham tradition, The Lithium Conspiracy is set against a shadowy world of intrigue and corruption. Giulio (Guido Caprino) is a lawyer dealing with the fallout from a company merger as well as attempting to reunite with his estranged family. One day he finds himself aboard a plane to the South American Republic of Queimada on a mysterious mission with his new, sexy superior Cecilia (Carolina Crescentini). When he questions the mission, he is told 'the less you know the better'.
  Screening at 6:40PM
  
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• Drama, Se Chiudo gli Occhi non Sono Più Qui
  (If I close my eyes I'm no longer here)
  Director: Vittorio Moroni
  
  Sixteen year-old Kiko (Mark Manaloto) lost his Italian father in an accident and lives with his Filipino mother, Marilou, and Ennio (Giuseppe Fiorello), the mother's companion who exploits illegal immigrants. Every day after school, Kiko is forced to work at Ennio's construction site. He feels he is living on the wrong planet. But there is place where is possible to daydream: an old, abandoned bus which the boy has made his refuge. One day Ettore (Giorgio Colangeli), an old friend of his father, offers to change his destiny by becoming his mentor. However, this man hides a secret.
  Screening at 8:40PM
  
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DATE: September 25, 2014
LOCATION: West End Cinema
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Founded in 1995, the Trio Lennon is composed of renowned soloists from the Marche region, and performs a repertoire that ranges from classical to romantic, with influences from the Vienna School, American music, and compositions created for the Trio.

This event is organized in collaboration with AIFIC - American Initiative for Italian Culture (more info).

DATE: September 26, 2014 at 6:30PM
LOCATION: Embassy of Italy
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Viaggio in Italia (1954)
Director: Roberto Rossellini
Starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders

Catherine and Alexander, wealthy and sophisticated, drive to Naples to dispose of a deceased uncle's villa. There's a coolness in their relationship and aspects of Naples add to the strain. She remembers a poet who loved her and died in the war; although she didn't love him, the memory underscores romance's absence from her life now. She tours the museums of Naples and Pompeii, immersing herself in the Neapolitan fascination with the dead and noticing how many women are pregnant; he idles on Capri, flirting with women but drawing back from adultery. With her, he's sarcastic; with him, she's critical.

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DATE: September 26, 2014 at 7PM
LOCATION: American University
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Il Sorpasso (1962)
Director: Dino Risi
Starring Vittorio Gassman and Catherine Spaak

An impulsive braggart takes a shy law student for a two-day ride through the Roman and Tuscany countries. It is considered Risi's masterpiece and one of the most famous examples of Commedia all'italiana film genre.

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DATE: September 28, 2014 at 4:30PM
LOCATION: American University
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Gianluca Pellerito has been twirling the drumsticks between his fingers since he was two years old, and today his extraordinary talent is already well-known in the international jazz circuit. He has played with the biggest names of the international jazz world. At just 18 years of age, Gianluca Pellerito is a star of the worldwide jazz scene.

He has two highly prestigious American tours under his belt and he is the only Italian to have played at the Kennedy Center in Washington by express request of the Kennedy family. He made a prestigious appearance at the London Jazz Party in December 2011 with his quartet, and was a big hit with audience and critics at the European Jazz Expo 2011, not to mention the splash he made at Milan's Blue Note with his Quintet.

DATE: September 29, 2014
LOCATION: Blues Alley
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BUY TICKETS: 8PM - 10PM

Marco Panascia is an Italian-born bassist, composer and educator living in New York City. His proficiency in many different musical situations and settings, and his strong doubling skills on the acoustic and the electric basses have earned him wholehearted praise in the United States, Europe and Japan.

Panascia has made a name for himself by being featured in the working bands of several jazz luminaries, such as Kenny Barron, Natalie Cole, Andy Bey, Eric Reed, Dado Moroni, Claudio Roditi, Peter Bernstein, Tamir Hendelman and David Kikoski, and by regularly appearing in some of the world's top music festivals and venues, such as the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Hollywood Bowl and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

DATE: September 30, 2014
LOCATION: Blues Alley
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BUY TICKETS: 8PM - 10PM

CONTEMPORARY FILM DOUBLE FEATURE

• La Mia Classe (2013)
  Director: Daniele Gaglianone
  
  The ostensibly simple story of a sympathetic veteran teacher giving Italian lessons to a weekly class of diverse immigrants is given infinitely more depth and complexity by the manner in which director Daniele Gaglianone renders his story.


• Tir (2013)
  Director: Alberto Fasulo
  
  Branko has been a truck driver for only a few months, a choice that is quite understandable, given that he now earns three times as much as he did as a schoolteacher. But everything has a price, which is not always quantifiable in terms of money. As children we were told: "work ennobles man". But here the opposite seems true: it is Branko, with his efficiency, his obstinacy, his good will, who ennobles a job that grows more and more alienating, absurd and enslaving.

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DATE: October 5, 2014 at 4:30PM
LOCATION: American University
MORE INFO: click here (free and open to the public)