At the end of this month the 2011 Alfa Romeo Italian Film Festival kicks off in cinemas, and Rialto Channel is helping you get in the mood throughout September.

Every Tuesday evening we’re presenting a recent Italian film from a collection of acclaimed, emerging and established Italian directors such as Maria Sole Tognassi, Marco Risi and Pupi Avati.

When it comes to tonight’s director, Maria Sole Tognassi, we’re featuring her second feature film, the stylish romance The Man Who Loves at 8.30pm. All you really need to know is that it stars the sultry Italian beauty Monica Bellucci, which in itself should have at least half the population reaching for their SKY remote.

  

It didn’t take long for this former law student (turned model, turned actress) to make a name for herself at home and abroad with a variety of memorable roles; a topless vampire in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), a war widow in Marlena (2000), a sci-fi vixen in The Matrix series (1999) and as Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004).

Bellucci’s still turning heads, currently promoting her new film Un Ete Brulant (also known as That Summer), she’s created a stir by reportedly announcing her decision to appear nude in the film (shot one month after giving birth to her daughter Léonie) was an act of generosity.

Over the years, Bellucci has worked several times with prominent Italian director Marco Risi (Kaputt Mundi, L'Ultimo Capodanno), and Risi’s latest feature film Fortapasc also features in our Italian series (Tuesday 20^th September, 8.30pm). Winner of the 2009 Italian Golden Globe for Best Director, Risi’s Fortapasc is a gritty and Scorsese-like drama based on the true story of Giancarlo Siani (Libero De Rienzo), a journalist killed by the Neapolitan Mafia in 1985. Its subject matter might remind you of the unflinchingly realistic Gomorrah, but Fortapasc is a very different film and is regarded as one of Risi’s best.

Ciao,

Francesca