The Resurrection of Tony Gitone Press Summary

Breakthrough Entertainment The Resurrection of Tony Gitone Toronto and Vancouver Theatrical Premieres GAT PR Press Summary

Interviews completed

Toronto

The Being Frank Show (City TV) Interviewed: Jerry Ciccoritti, Nick Mancuso

Out There (City tv, OMNI) Interviwed: Jerry Ciccoritti, Fab Fillippo, Paula Rivera

CHIN TV -­‐ Johnny Lombardi Variety Show Interviewed: Jerry Ciccoritti

CBC Metro Morning Interviewed: Jerry Ciccoritti

The Globe and Mail Interviwed: Jerry Ciccoritti

National Post – The Diarist Featured: Jerry Ciccoritti

Corriere Canadese Interviewed: Jerry Ciccoritti, Paula Rivera, Fab Filippo

BlogTO Interviewed: Jerry Ciccoritti

MSN Canada Interviwed: Jerry Ciccoritti

Rogers TV – Canadian Film Review Interviewed: Fab Fillippo

Daily XY Interviewed: Paula Rivera

Panoram Italia Interviewed: Jerry Ciccoritti

Global Morning News Interviewed: John Cassini

Breakfast Television (City) Interviewed: John Cassini

Vancouver Province (Postmedia Network) Interviewed: Jerry Ciccoritti

Shaw TV – The Rush Interviewed: Jerry Ciccoritti, John Cassini

Vancouver

A new film honours College Street, Toronto’s Little Italy and ‘European soul’

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/a-­‐new-­‐film-­‐honours-­‐college-­‐street-­‐torontos-­‐little-­‐ italy-­‐and-­‐european-­‐soul/article10198616/

By Gayle Macdonald | March 22, 2013

Over the whir of a cappuccino maker and the sound of popping wine bottles, filmmaker Jerry Ciccoritti speaks above the din, recalling the day roughly two years ago when he had the “eureka” moment that led to him making his new film, The Resurrection of Tony Gitone, a comedy about his experience growing up in Toronto’s Little Italy.

Seated at his usual table in his favourite haunt, College Street’s Il Gatto Nero, the prolific filmmaker was having lunch with a friend when they got talking about aging, missed opportunities and the challenges of starting over. In other words, navigating life’s second chapter at a time when change is happening so fast around them that they’re struggling to catch up. Let alone fit in.

“I don’t know what came over me, but I kind of got carried away, and went into a full-­‐blown rant,” says Mr. Ciccoritti, who lives a stone’s throw from the Napoli-­‐themed cafe, one of several iconic landmarks along the Little Italy strip that stretches from Bathurst to Ossington. “I was telling my friend there’s now my generation of Italian Canadians who were all born here, or came over when we were babies from Italy in the 1960s and 70s, who have an obligation to pay tribute to the sacrifices our parents made.

“Right then, I decided to make a movie that would be a tribute to a neighbourhood and to a generation of men in a cultural and emotional crisis. So I walked up to [Il Gatto owner] Carmen [Raviele], who was standing behind the bar right where he is now,” Mr. Ciccoritti says, pointing to the owner. “And I asked, Can I shoot here for six days? I can’t pay you anything, but I want to make a movie about how change should be embraced.”

His timing was fortuitous, especially in light of Little Italy’s current metamorphosis. Looking out at the College Street streetscape, he takes in the scores of new businesses that have been popping up: New ethnically diverse restaurants, arts hubs, bookstores and trendy retail shops. “I open the film with a montage of the stores along this strip. Now half of them are gone. I feel like this is the beginning of the rise of Little Italy.”

Little Italy, as a brand, is something of a misnomer, since the biggest chunk of the population is Portuguese. But as older generations – Italians and Portuguese – have moved out, young, hip couples and families of all ethnicities have been coming in. Enterprising, new businesses have steadily popped up – replacing the traditional mom-­‐and-­‐pop shops – offering everything from art exhibits celebrating porn (the gallery Huntclub recently curated a show called With Pleasure), live music (Moskito + Bite showcases electronic, funk, soul, pop rock and jazz) and upscale sushi for 20-­‐ somethings who love the invigorated vibe of the once-­‐sleepy area.

The trendsetting Monocle – the magazine-­‐turned-­‐retail operation founded in 2007 by writer/editor Tyler Brûlé – has set up shop, choosing Little Italy as its first Canadian store. (Others are in London, Tokyo, New York and Hong Kong). “We love the neighbourhood,” says Emily Smith, Monocle’s events manager. “It’s a hub for independent businesses. There’s a sense of community in the area and it’s buzzy. There’s also some excellent food very close by.”

As longtime resident Lenny Lombardi notes: “You can’t walk two steps without getting a good cup of cappuccino.”

Mr. Lombardi runs the radio/broadcast company CHIN that his legendary dad, Johnny, founded years ago. “There’s still a lot of ‘Italian-­‐ness’ here. But the neighbourhood’s moving on. There’s a magic here and people who have lived or visited here develop a strong connection to it.”

Jessica Piech, director of communications for another new arts hub, the Peach Gallery, says they located in Little Italy because it’s fast becoming a non-­‐homogenous alternative for culture-­‐seekers craving diversity. “We’re here because it’s one of the best cultural neighbourhoods in Toronto. We’re pulling people from all over the city to this space and they’re coming because exciting things are happening here.” On April 4, the Peach Gallery will host a gutsy exhibit called Bullet Proof, by artist Viktor Mitic, who fires rounds of bullets into canvases depicting portraits of famous people such as John Lennon, JFK and Brad Pitt.

It’s an installation that addresses the rash of recent shootings in cities like Toronto, including last summer’s gang-­‐related shooting of Little Italy resident John Raposo, who was gunned down on the patio of the Sicilian Sidewalk Café amid a crowd watching a European Cup soccer match.

“We’ve all heard stories growing up in the neighbourhood of brawls and vendettas. Of this guy who ran a clothing store who was mad at the shoe-­‐store owner across the street, so he shot him in the foot,” Mr. Ciccoritti says. “I believe 90 per cent of those stories happened. But in those days, the neighbourhood was very enclosed with all the Italians. Now Little Italy is exposed to the outside. Now it’s wide open.”

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone, about a budding Italian-­‐Canadian actor (Fab Filippo) who is thrown a party by his older Italian friends when he returns to the neighbourhood, is basically Mr. Ciccoritti’s love letter to a place that shaped him and cemented his cultural identity. His film opens Good Friday at the Royal Cinema, down the street from Il Gatto Nero.

And while it’s no longer the Italian mecca it once was, he believes Little Italy will never lose its “European soul.”

“Frederico Fellini used to say that the reason he always said no to offers from Hollywood was because he didn’t know how an American holds a cigarette. I guess that’s partly why I shot here. I know how everyone holds their cigarettes, how they walk, and how they talk. My movie isn’t nostalgia. I hate nostalgia. I don’t have a warm, fuzzy feeling about the old Italians in the old neighbourhood. This movie is about the inevitability of change. And the good that can come of it.”

Little Italy Movie

Wednesday March 27, 2013 http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/episodes/2013/03/27/little-­‐italy-­‐movie/

Matt Galloway spoke with Jerry Ciccoritti. He is the writer and director of "The Resurrection of Tony Gitone", it opens Good Friday at the Royal Theatre.

Listen (runs 5:29)

Fab Filippo -­‐ The Resurrection of Tony Gitone -­‐ Out There Update http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq2JjLQPG0U

Melissa talks with Fabrizio Filippo about his starring role in The Resurrection of Tony Gitone -­‐ a film about a second chances. Reminiscent of character driven films such as "Husbands", 'Big Night' and 'Diner'; 'The Resurrection of Tony Gitone' is a universal dramedy about life, love, friendship and embracing your roots. Catch it in theatres today!

Jerry Ciccoritti and Paula Rivera -­‐ The Resurrection of Tony Gitone -­‐ Out There Update http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWqUZq0BfvI

Melissa talks with Jerry Ciccoritti, the Award-­‐Winning Director Of Boy Meets Girl, and Paula Rivera, one of the stars of his latest filmThe Resurrection of Tony Gitone -­‐ a film about a second chances. Reminiscent of character driven films such as "Husbands", 'Big Night' and 'Diner'; 'The Resurrection of Tony Gitone' is a universal dramedy about life, love, friendship and embracing your roots. Catch it in theatres today!

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone pokes fun at Italian clichés

http://entertainment.ca.msn.com/movies/features/the-­‐resurrection-­‐of-­‐tony-­‐gitone-­‐pokes-­‐fun-­‐at-­‐ italian-­‐clich%C3%A9s

By Sean Plummer | March 28, 2013

Jerry Ciccoritti hopes fellow Italian-­‐Canadians support movie

He does not expect them to, but Toronto-­‐based director Jerry Ciccoritti hopes his fellow Italian-­‐Canadians go see his new movie The Resurrection of Tony Gitone.

“My culture is famous for being smart, and they contribute to culture, and they are very, very funny people,” he says. “But the one thing that they don’t do a lot is they don’t actually leave their houses and go out and do things.”

Ciccoritti (The Lives of the Saints, Bomb Girls) cites his community’s reticence to support their own as “another aspect of Italian blowhard pride. You walk into any Greek restaurant in Toronto and see it’s filled with Greeks.

You walk into any Italian restaurant, you won’t see Italians because the cliché is ‘my wife or my mother cooks better. Why should I go out?’”

Shot in Toronto’s Little Italy neighbourhood, with a cast made up almost entirely of Italo-­‐Canadians, The Resurrection of Tony Gitone stars Fab Filippo (Being Erica) as Nino, a local actor who has returned home from Los Angeles to shoot a movie in which he has won the lead role. With his movie star girlfriend Vanessa Luna (Paula Rivera, Flashpoint) on his arm, Nino seems to finally be on the brink of stardom, after years of striving in Hollywood. To celebrate, Fab’s friends gather at a local restaurant to talk about old times and new possibilities.

But as the vino starts to flow, various hurts, suspicions, and recriminations rise to the surface, making Nino’s homecoming bittersweet.

The director traces the film’s genesis to a lunch he had in early 2011 with a film distributor friend at Toronto’s Il Gatto Nero, a popular Italian restaurant. It was there that Ciccoritti got on a “rant” about what it means to be an Italian-­‐Canadian of a certain age.

“We’re all kind of sliding into middle age,” he says of himself and his friends. “And we are also facing those questions of identity: who are we? Did we really pay off our parents’ suffering? Have we really taken advantage of what Canada had to offer? What’s going to happen with the second half of our lives? Have we been a success? Have we blown it? All those things, which I think are specific to a Canadian immigrant as opposed to an American immigrant.”

Ciccoritti’s friend then surprised him by promising to distribute a movie that addressed those very concerns.

Put on the spot, Ciccoritti approached Il Gatto Nero owner Carmine Raviele, who was working behind the bar, with the idea of shooting a movie set in his restaurant featuring all Italian actors. Raviele agreed.

“And at that point I thought, ‘Maybe this could happen.’”

Ciccoritti then called up several actor friends – including Filippo, Tony Nardi, John Cassini, and Nick Mancuso – and told them about the project. All were interested so Ciccoritti headed down to Mexico for a month to write a first draft of the script. When he returned, Ciccoritti called the cast together a couple of times over the summer, where they “jammed” on the script and videotaped rehearsals. They then shot the film at Il Gatto Nero over six of the restaurant’s least busy nights, from midnight to 6am.

Genie Award-­‐winner Mancuso (Ticket to Heaven) is the film’s highest-­‐profile cast member. He plays Vince, a respected film director whom mainstream star Vanessa Luna targets. She wants to star in his upcoming independent production, thus establishing her artistic credibility, although Vince doubts that she is right for the role.

Mancuso’s involvement seemed impossible, however, when he had quadruple bypass heart surgery just a month before filming was set to start. Ciccoritti told Mancuso he would have to recast the role, but the actor insisted he could do it. So after consulting with Mancuso’s doctor, Ciccoritti rewrote the part so that Vince would show up late to the party and spend most of his time in a chair, cutting down the number of nights he would have to turn up and making his performance physically easier on him. Like Mancuso, Vince would also have just had quadruple bypass surgery, allowing the director to show off his star’s fresh surgical scars.

“Nick is like the other half of the Fab Filippo character,” Ciccoritti explains. “Even though Nick’s character is a director and Fab’s character is an actor, they’re both in the film business. So in a way that’s me split down the middle, where Fab’s character is dealing with the stuff that the younger version of me was dealing with in the film business in Canada and Mancuso’s character is dealing with the now and in my future what’s going to happen to me in the next stage of my life as a film artist.”

Indeed, Ciccoritti, 56, sees The Resurrection of Tony Gitone as a left turn away from the TV movies and episodic television he has been working on in recent years. While those gigs make him “a shitload of money,” he acknowledges, they do not always challenge him as much artistically as he wants them to.

“As you get older, every artist becomes unhip, no matter what,” Ciccoritti says. “That’s just the nature of the thing; directors, singers, painters, whatever. There’s kind of a hole you go through, and I know I am about to enter that hole, and maybe I’m there already. So I have to challenge myself; I have to work harder to make myself more interesting. So I am looking for second chances myself, and I want my movie to look like that.”

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone opens at Toronto’s Royal Cinema on March 29.

New film set in Little Italy opens at the Royal Cinema

http://www.blogto.com/film/2013/03/new_film_set_in_little_italy_opens_at_the_royal_cinema/

By Gesilayefa Azorbo | March 30, 2013

There's no homecoming like an Italian homecoming. The food, the wine, the stories...the secrets. Jerry Ciccoritti's latest film, The Resurrection of Tony Gitone which premiered at the Royal Cinema last night, is a character-­‐led family drama in the tradition of Diner or Goodfellas -­‐ but with a focus here on the lives, loves and stories found in the Italian-­‐Canadian community.

The story, set in Little Italy, centers on the return of Nino, a local boy done good played

by Fab Filippo. Nino is the neighbourhood golden boy, having left for Hollywood to try his luck in the city of dreams, and now he's returned clutching the biggest one -­‐ a leading

role in a major feature opposite the Hollywood It-­‐Girl of the moment, Vanessa Luna (Paula Rivera). The bonus? She's also currently his girlfriend.

The whole family is there to meet them -­‐ successful contractor Leo (John Cassini), esteemed novelist Frankie (Ron Lea), Italian-­‐community media mogul Alberto (Alvaro D'Antonio), Eddie the restauranteur (Louis Di Bianco), mobster-­‐turned-­‐chef Bruno (Tony Nappo) and aging film director Nick Mancuso. But beneath the glistening surface of these immigrant success stories and celebration, each person hides a lurking secret that threatens to rock the emotional foundations of the family, and even Nino himself is not being completely honest about his sudden Hollywood success story.

Here's my interview with director Jerry Ciccoritti about the unexpected way the film came into existence.

Where did the story come from?

It comes from a very serious place in my heart. The circumstances of where this film came from emotionally, and where this film came from physically are actually one and the same. I was literally having lunch at Il Gatto Nero with a friend of mine, a film distributor who's since retired. And we were just having a completely casual lunch. I had no agenda of any kind and I had no idea of a movie of any kind.

He's Italian and I'm Italian. We were both just riffing on how it's too bad that there's this generation of Italian-­‐Canadians, men and women who are in their 30s, 40s, approaching 50...there's a particular creative and life crisis they have as they're sliding into middle age, and the issues are, you know, what do we do with the second halves of our lives?

Have we accomplished anything? Canada is supposed to be a place where the immigrant story is one of success but at a price. How do we fit in?

I was like...literally rambling. I had no intention of making a movie at all. And as I was going on and being all upset, like, "Gosh darnit, somebody should make this movie because these are important personal issues!" he reached over and grabbed my hand, the distributor, and he said, listen to me, if you make that movie, I promise you I'll get it out to theatres. And that stopped me, I was like, Oh my God, am I talking about a movie?

Am I talking about something for real? I know these issues are really important to me, but am I ready to do this movie about these people and these issues? Fuck it, I am.

I looked over and there was Carmen, who owns Il Gatto Nero...a good friend of mine, and I marched right over to the table and right out of my ass I said, "Carmen I'm going to come back here at the end of August. I need your place for six nights. I'm going to shoot a movie with Nick Mancuso, Fab Filippo, Tony Nardi, blah blah blah, and I need your place. How's that?" And he says, "Ok, sure."

And then I realized I had a location, so I ran home and phoned all the actors and said, "We're going to shoot something at the end of August, are you guys available? And they

all said yeah, so then I realized I had the location, I got the cast, I need a script...and it kind of went from there.

Did you know who you wanted right away?

Well, I knew that practicality had to mean creativity, so auditioning actors and stuff was out of the question, and I knew I wanted to make it about a bunch of Italian men, and there was this group of actors who are Italian, and they are really, really, really amazing actors, and they're also friends of mine. I've worked with them a lot.

So it makes more sense that I just sort of write something for these guys, and it will give us all a chance to fire on all thrusters. I know what these guys do really well. I know what their weaknesses are. I also know what they've always wanted to do and no one has ever let them. So I'm going to write that for them, so everyone finally gets a chance to really, really shine.

So I guess it's good that you wrote the script after you got your location and everything?

Oh, yeah, exactly. Everything has a certain impact -­‐ I got a cafe for free, but Carmen says I can only use it from midnight to 6 am when the place is closed. So then you have to sit down and say to yourself, okay, what happens in a cafe or restaurant when it's closed?

Well, you're going to have a private party. So I know that my movie, whether I like it or not, is going to be about a private party.

Talking about the story, I found it very interesting that you had it kind of work around a party, a homecoming, but there's all these different layers to it. It's not what it seems like at first. Was that intentional, when you were first going in, to have all these layers peel away, or did that come across the more you worked on it?

That was extremely intentional from when I was writing the first draft of the script. The movie takes place in one night, and I owe it to the audience, if I'm going to ask them to watch a movie that takes place basically in one location, I need to give them the world in one location. So I sort of, in a very pretentious way, modeled it on James Joyce's Dubliners. I got ten people. Conflict is always between two people which means I've got five sources of conflict. I've got to give the audience five stories.

So out of these ten people I've got to give them a series of two-­‐handers where it's a beginning, a middle and an end. The conflict, if you take it by itself, it's completely unimportant and not interesting. But if you put five uninteresting stories together, banging together...they're like two pieces of flint. You hit them together and there's a spark, and all of life and all the world can come out by these small stories.

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone is currently playing exclusively at the Royal Cinema.

Check the theatre's web site for showtimes.

Interview with Paula Rivera http://dailyxy.com/article/interview-­‐with-­‐paula-­‐rivera/

Shot in Toronto’s Little Italy (in the very real and genuinely delicious Il Gatto Nero), The Resurrection of Tony Gitone (directed by Jerry Ciccoritti, with Fab Filipo, Tony Nardi, Tony Nappo, Louis Di Bianco, Alvaro D’Antonio, John Cassini, and Nick Mancuso) brings together a group of old friends to ostensibly to celebrate the success of one of their own, but in the process each ends up going through their own long, dark night of the soul.

Paula Rivera rounds out the cast, both as the only woman in a roomful of men and the only non-­‐Italian in a who’s who cast of Italian-­‐Canadians. We caught up with Paula over the weekend.

What attracted you to the script?

Working with Jerry and with all those fantastic actors in such a creative matter and dealing with material that was so close to them and me in a way. Even though I am from a different generation and different background I have lived the experience of building yourself up in a different country and trying to make sense as to what really matters in life.

Watching The Resurrection of Tony Gitone feels more like watching a play than watching a movie; did you guys rehearse heavily, or improvise moments with each other?

The process was very interesting. Jerry [Ciccoritti] had written a script and we got together in a room to read it and then did some improvs based on it. These improvs were filmed, and with that material, Jerry created a second script. We got into a room again and did more improvs, then a third script was created and that was the one we shot. However, once on set Jerry allowed us to either stick to the script or use our own words, so we had the freedom to move between learned lines and spontaneous thoughts.

What’s it like working with so many strong presences in the room?

I felt honoured to be sharing such personal material with these man. I learned a lot about them not only as actors but as people. Their strong presences were a great challenge for me to step to the plate. No chance to play a little girl, I had to be a woman.

How much did they let you cook at Il Gatto Nero?

I did stir the polenta and that was about it. Lots of eating though.

What’s your cocktail of choice?

I am more a beer and wine kind of girl Have you ever emptied a drink over a guy like that in real life?

No, but it felt good.

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone is playing at the Royal, which, appropriately enough, is in Toronto’s Little Italy.

FABRIZIO FILIPPO Talks About the Resurrection of Tony Gitone http://www.pressplus1.com/canadian-­‐film-­‐interviews/fabrizio-­‐filippo-­‐talks-­‐about-­‐the-­‐resurrection-­‐ of-­‐tony-­‐gitone

By Kindah Mardam Bey | March 28, 2013

You usually see charming little Anglo-­‐Italian movies out of New York, but here is our opportunity to take a look at our own italian culture in Canada with the indie feature The Resurrection of Tony Gitone.

A prodigal son of Toronto's Little Italy returns home for the night with a beautiful actress and dines with the men in his community. Over grappa, incredible meals, and a couple of violent outbursts, we see an Italian community come together much like you would expect anywhere in the world.

We interview leading actor Fabrizio Filippo about making this film in his hometown of Toronto, working again with Nick Mancuso and why it is exciting that the film is playing at The Royal this weekend (starting March 29th)

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone: Love amid the ruins of Toronto’s Little Italy http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/film-­‐reviews/the-­‐resurrection-­‐of-­‐tony-­‐gitone-­‐love-­‐amid-­‐ the-­‐ruins-­‐of-­‐torontos-­‐little-­‐italy/article10517031/

By Michael Posner | March 28, 2013

You would never know it from the title, but The Resurrection of Tony Gitone is, on several levels, a love story.

Shot over six days (on what appears to have been a microscopic budget, even by Canadian standards), the film unites a disparate ensemble of 40-­‐ and 50-­‐something male friends (landlord, developer, restaurateur, reformed Mafiosi, chef, writer, film director) in a single late-­‐night celebration.

The venue is their old haunt, Toronto’s Il Gatto Nero, in the heart of Little Italy. The gathering is in honour of one of their own, actor Nino (Fabrizio Filippo), who has returned home from Hollywood to star in a major motion picture, opposite big-­‐name actress Vanessa Luna (Paula Rivera).

That’s the first romance, the classic, set-­‐fuelled infatuation that typically ends on the last day of principal photography. This one may, too.

Then there’s the deeper storia d’amore, the tale of old friends who clearly love each other, at least in a fraternal way, despite the issues that constantly divide them and set off their hair-­‐trigger tempers.

And finally, the film constitutes a private billet-­‐doux, director Ciccoritti’s salute to his own generation, children of the great wave of Italians who fled the crushing post-­‐war poverty of Calabria and emigrated to Canada in the 1950s and 60s. Now middle-­‐aged, they find themselves fully Canadianized, whatever that may mean, but deeply attached to their childhood memories and the vanishing totems of their own cultural heritage.

Il Gatto Nero’s modest shrine to Tony Gitone, an immigrant who may have died during construction of the Toronto subway – his framed black-­‐and-­‐white photograph, Italian flags, a soccer ball, a lit candle – becomes a metaphor for the lost world.

This larger, bittersweet meta-­‐story hovers over the various plot lines, not always credibly. We have Bruno (Tony Nappo), ostensibly a former Mafia hit man turned chef who would not frighten a kitchen mouse. We have Leo (John Cassini), a cuckolded husband ready to murder the man who has besmirched his honour – with an unloaded gun. We have the handsome leading man (Filippo), at least a decade too young for the part.

Although Ciccoritti and two others are credited with the screenplay, most of the dialogue has the feel of wholesale improvisation, the actors left to their own devices to create meaningful moments, all the while drinking copious amounts of wine and consuming Italian comfort food.

At times, in the expert hands of Tony Nardi (as the restaurant’s owner, Mario) and Nick Mancuso (as aging film director, Vince, the film’s most commanding presence), the results are genuine and magical. With other characters, not so much. We get a better sense of the collective identity than we do of the individual.

What emerges is a film rich in brio (enlivened by Maurizio Abeni’s delightful score), but sadly soft at its narrative core. There are too many story lines – most are painfully thin – and the editing jumps between them, at times jarringly. As dawn approaches, the character conflicts are resolved, a little too tidily. Still, there’s a certain spell cast here, anincantesimo, and it’s hard not to warm to the party that Ciccoritti throws for his beloved paesani.

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone at home in Toronto’s Little Italy: review http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2013/03/28/the_resurrection_of_tony_gitone_at_h ome_in_torontos_little_italy_review.html

By Rob Salem | March 28, 2013

3.5 stars

Starring Fab Filippo, Nick Mancuso and Tony Nardi. Directed by Jerry Ciccoritti.

Opens March 29 at the Royal Cinema.

Nino has come home. The handsome young actor (Fab Filippo), having scored a lead role in a major Hollywood movie, has returned to his old neighbourhood in Toronto’s Little Italy to celebrate with some of the local characters he grew up around. He has brought along with him his

Latina movie-­‐star girlfriend Vanessa (Paula Rivera).

By the time he arrives, they’re all there: Mario (Tony Nardi), the tightly wound restaurateur host of the welcome-­‐home party; Bruno (Tony Nappo), the reformed mobster who is now his chef; Eddie (Louis Di Bianco), whose own neighbourhood restaurant is going under; Al (Alvaro D’Antonio), the wealthy owner of the local multi-­‐cultural radio station (a fictionalized spin on CHIN), Leo (John Cassini), who has just found out his wife’s been unfaithful to him. . .

And later an unexpected guest, Vince (Nick Mancuso), also from the neighbourhood, a marginally successful director recovering from heart surgery.

Vince has been unsuccessfully pitching an indie film very close to that injured heart, asThe Resurrection of Tony Gitone clearly is to director and co-­‐writer Jerry Ciccoritti, a prolific and much-­‐admired director of film and TV.

This is Ciccoritti’s love letter to the community of his youth, equal parts retrospective nostalgia and affectionate contemplation of how things change. And never quite in the way we expect.

But mostly it’s the people, so vividly embodied by these veteran character actors that the often-­‐overlapping dialogue appears to have been improvised.

If you need a precedent reference, The Resurrection of Tony Gitone could be described as a less food-­‐ centric Big Night, with a similarly engaging cast of relatable, specifically ethnic characters, and the intersecting and often unexpected stories that draw us inexorably into their lives.

Resurrection in need of resuscitation http://www.torontosun.com/2013/03/28/resurrection-­‐in-­‐need-­‐of-­‐resuscitation

By Bruce Kirkland | March 28,2013

TORONTO -­‐ The setting for The Resurrection of Tony Gitone is Little Italy in Toronto, at the College and Euclid intersection. A restaurant-­‐bar called Il Gatto Nero is closed for a private party. A bunch of Italian-­‐Canadian friends (and enemies) are getting together for a testimonial. Secrets and lies will be swapped, exposed and booted around. One guy has a gun and an anger issue.

This is something that could and probably does happen every day of the week in Little Italy. Most people do not make a movie about it. Filmmaker Jerry Ciccoritti decided he would, gathering together many of his pals for the enterprise.

The ensemble is comprised of Alvaro D’Antonio, Louis Di Bianco, John Cassini, Fab Filippo, Ron Lea, Nick Mancuso, Michael Miranda, Tony Nappo and Tony Nardi — plus Paula Rivera as the token female in this cesspool of ‘BS’ machismo. They sit around eating, drinking, talking and fighting.

As a movie, The Resurrection of Tony Gitone is as close to unwatchable as any Canadian movie I have seen in many years. Bad visuals, worst dialogue, no production values. Only friends and family of the filmmakers and cast members will be interested. As for the rest of the population, we would do better to hang out in Little Italy ourselves for a night of great good, drink and conversation with our own friends. Our own secrets and lies are far more interesting.

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone 6/10

By Jason Anderson

Starring Fab Filippo, Nick Mancuso. Written by Jerry Ciccoritti, Jennifer Dyell, Svet Rouskov. Directed by Jerry Ciccoritti. STC. 92 min. Opens March 29 at the Royal.

An ensemble piece by veteran Toronto director Jerry Ciccoritti and a garrulous crew of great Italian-­‐Canadian actors, The Resurrection of Tony Gitone is most satisfying as a tribute to College Street’s Little Italy strip.

Proudly showcasing its setting, the opening moments provide a sort of cinematic walking tour, featuring an array of street signs and familiar sites such as Motoretta, Soundscapes, and, of course, the Royal.

Yet it’s the comfy interior of the Gatto Nero that hosts the majority of the action in this story of old friends who’ve come together to celebrate the return of Nino (Fab Filippo), an actor on the verge of his big break in Hollywood. Though his neighbourhood pals are suitably smitten with Nino’s celebrity companion, Vanessa (Paula Rivera), the initially convivial mood is threatened by a simmering stew of secrets, lies, and resentments.

Their issues range from one character’s agonizing over his wife’s infidelity to differing attitudes about the value of their shared Italian heritage. The belated arrival of Vince (Nick Mancuso)—an ailing film director who may be crucial to Nino’s future career—stirs the pot further.

What with the echoes of Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci’s well-­‐loved restaurant film Big Night in The Resurrection of Tony Gitone’s own scenes of cooking and dining, Ciccoritti and his cast are eager to serve something hearty to moviegoers. Yet for all the acting talent on display, the film struggles to accommodate the surplus of storylines; viewers may feel like they’re being served insufficiently meager portions of dishes that deserved more time in the kitchen. As a result, the energy level flags long before the party’s through.

Nevertheless, there are still moments of great gusto in Ciccoritti’s nighttime jaunt through Little Italy.

Toronto Little Italy nel film di Ciccoritti http://corriere.com/2013/03/28/toronto-­‐little-­‐italy-­‐nel-­‐film-­‐di-­‐ciccoritti/ March 28, 2013 TORONTO – Amici, famiglia, cibo e vino. È una ricetta universale italiana per la felicità. Ma nel vino c’è anche tanta “veritas” e la verità ha la tendenza di creare scompiglio; in particolare su coloro che custodiscono segreti. Elementi chiave della cultura italiana che viene rappresentata dal regista Jerry Ciccoritti in The Resurrection of Tony Gitone. La pellicola sarà al cinema da domani: in scena un cast di attori italo-­‐canadesi di nota fama per un racconto di vita, amicizia e radici culturali che spaziano dalle tradizioni alle manie.

In una afosa notte d’estate a Little Italy, alcuni amici si ritrovano a “Il Gatto Nero”, noto locale su College Street, per festeggiare il ritorno a casa di Nino (interpretato da Fab Filippo) che ha cercato fortuna a Los Angeles dove, grazie al suo fascino, è riuscito a recitare piccole parti in grandi produzioni cinematografiche. Dopo anni il ritorno a Toronto prima di calarsi nei panni di protagonista in un nuovo film di un notissimo regista. E con lui, arriva una star internazionale: Vanessa Luna (Paula Rivera) che Nino porta in giro per le strade di Little Italy come un trofeo per farsi vedere da tutti.

Ma Nino non è il solo personaggio di The Resurrection of Tony Gitone: ci sono l’imprenditore Leo (John Cassini), che ha appena scoperto una relazione extraconiugale; Frankie (Ron Lea), pietra dello scandalo della famiglia per aver pubblicato un romanzo troppo autobiografico; Alberto (Alvaro D’Antonio), un “mogul” della comunità italo-­‐canadese; Bruno (Tony Nappo), ex mafioso divenato chef e Vince (Nick Mancuso), un regista che si lascia manipolare daVanessa Luna.

Quello che inizia come un incontro gioioso e pieno di allegria, cibo, vino e balli; presto si trasforma in un’esplosione di vecchi rancori e segreti nascosti per troppo tempo, e puntano pugni e pistole tra i piatti pieni di cibo. Ma The Resurrection of Tony Gitone è una storia di redenzione. Amore e amicizia sconfiggono tutti i risentimenti, com’è vero che il Sole sorge sopra College Street.

«Ho girato questo film con grande entusiasmo anche perché per la prima volta sono riuscito a mettere insieme tutti i miei amici», dice Ciccoritti. «Stavo lavorando su un altro progetto, ed ero in attesa di un finanziamento quando mi sono detto: “Perché no?”. Ho cambiato soggetto e progetto, l’idea è nata proprio mentre ero seduto a “Il Gatto Nero” e quindi immerso nella nella vita reale di College Street. Ho pensato alla serie di personaggi che avevo incontarto nel corso degli anni, 10 personaggi diversi e quindi ho chiamato alcuni amici attori italo-­‐canadesi. Ho sempre voluto fare una cosa del genere: qualcosa di reale che racconta le proprie esperienze».

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone da domani sera al “The Royal Cinema” 608 College St. Per informazioni sugli orari: http://www.theroyal.to/films/resurrection-­‐tony-­‐gitone/

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone-­‐ a tale of life, friendships and Italian roots Film by acclaimed Canadian Director and Producer, Jerry Ciccoritti shot on location in Toronto’s Little Italy

By ROSANNA BONURA | April 1, 2013 http://tandemnews.ca/author/rbonura/

Gather a group of long-­‐time Italian Canadian friends around a table with good food and wine, and you’re bound to have a ton of laughs and great conversation. There is plenty of that and a lot of drama in The Resurrection of Tony Gitone, produced and directed by Jerry Ciccoritti. The film premiered on March 29 in Toronto at The Royal Cinema on College Street.

It was more than fitting to have the premiere in Toronto’s Little Italy, as the entire film was shot there. The setting for the movie takes place is the neighbourhood’s famous Il Gatto Nero restaurant/bar, which is where the idea for the movie came about. “It was actually just an impulse.

It’s one of those strange moments in life where the idea and the impulse all come together,” says Producer and Director, Jerry Ciccoritti. While sitting in the real-­‐life Gatto Nero one day with an Italian friend, Jerry found himself complaining how their generation of Italian-­‐Canadians didn’t have their stories told on screen, or a play, or a book. Jerry’s friend told him he should do something about that, and so Jerry’s creative mind instantly went to work. He knew it had to be done in a place like Il Gatto Nero, so he asked the owner then and there, and then called his actor friends who were instantly on board with the idea. In only a couple of hours, Jerry Ciccoritti had his location and cast. Then came time to write the script. “All I really did was look into my heart. I knew that with this film I had to be truthful and thoughtful. It had to be something that was true to who I am and where I come from, my people, my place, and our issues and how I can dramatize that in a simple, clean, direct way that the

audience can be entertained by,” he tells Tandem. Jerry Ciccoritti was born and raised in Toronto and is one of Canada’s most prolific and influential directors. Throughout his career, he’s worked with an impressive roster of talent including Sophia Loren, James Caan, Colm Feore, Sarah Polley, Catharine O’Hara, Kris Kristofferson and Kate Nelligan, just to name a few. His features have played to festivals worldwide and he’s received numerous awards for his work.

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone (Breakthrough Entertainment/New Real Films) tells the story of a struggling actor, Nino (Fabrizio Filippo), who returns to his family in Toronto for the first time after years of landing minor acting roles in Hollywood.

This time around, there is reason to celebrate as Nino just landed a big break with a starring role in a major American director’s new movie along with an international star, Vanessa Luna (Paula Rivera), who he brings home with him to show off to the Canadian neighbourhood. It’s a summer night in Toronto’s Little Italy when Nino returns and heads to hot-­‐spot Il Gatto Nero with Vanessa by his side. The owner of the restaurant, Mario (Tony Nardi) is throwing a birthday/homecoming party for Nino to celebrate the immigrant kid turned actor. The get-­‐together becomes a gathering among good friends who have been there for each other throughout life’s ups and downs, each representing a different aspect of Italian immigrant life in Toronto. There is contractor Leo (John Cassini), who just discovered that his wife is having an affair; Frankie (Ron Lea), who scandalized the family with a tell-­‐ all novel; Alberto (Alvaro D’Antonio), an Italian-­‐community media mogul; Eddie (Louis Di Bianco), a failed restaurateur; Bruno (Tony Nappo), a mobster-­‐turned-­‐chef; John (Michael Miranda); and Vince (Nick Mancuso), an aging director who is also prone to the manipulating ways of Vanessa Luna.

Vanessa, played by actress Paula Rivera, is the only female in the entire cast. This was a welcoming opportunity and one with a bit of a surprise. “It was really interesting because I got to see that men are more divas than women,” she chuckles. “It was also a privilege because they were talking about being Italian Canadian which is so personal for them and for me that was a gift because I got to see how these actors felt about that on a much more personal level. It was incredible working with people who are so talented, open and giving,” Paula tells Tandem. She also enjoyed playing the role of the strong and

beautiful Vanessa Luna. “It was really fun because I got to play a movie star. She’s coming from a crisis with her marriage and career not being a young actress anymore and trying to move into producing. It was also different from other roles in the sense that I got to be a woman who was very confident and successful, and a woman trying to build her life from a grown-­‐up perspective. She’s a woman who wants to get ahead in her life,” says Paula about her character.

The entire film is shot in one location (Il Gatto Nero) and over the course of one night. The decision to do so without doubt sets the film apart from others and was a decision that Jerry says stems from his need to do the film on the spot and in the moment. “It came from this incredible passion to do the film right now.” The script was created in a few months and the film was shot in only six nights-­‐

an incredibly short time span for the project. “I came up with what I thought was an incredible way of working which was a combination of writing and jamming with the actors,” explains Jerry. He alludes to a quote from film director John Cassavetes who once said “sometimes the moment of truth is not the script, but the moment of the actor”. Jerry says this has inspired his work numerous times and especially on this film. The outcome was various drafts of the script, who Jerry gave the actors and other writers the chance to change and add to it as it was passed from one person to another. “Jerry was our fearless leader. He was so open and collaborative and yet so firm and directive that we wouldn’t have been able to get the movie done in the timeframe that we did if we weren’t all steering the ship in the same direction,” says actor John Cassini. John plays the role of a distraught husband who discovers his wife has been having an affair with one of his long-­‐time friends, who pretends nothing ever happened, even while consoling him at the get-­‐together.

The role, as John Cassini explains to Tandem, is one of the best he’s taken on as an actor. “It was challenging in a good way and in the best way an actor wants to be challenged in that I had the gift of bringing a large problem into the room because my character finds out that his wife is cheating on him. The challenge for me was to keep that true line throughout the piece even while a lot of the characters were jovial.”As the film unfolds, we witness the various issues each of the characters is dealing with at some capacity or another, and even with each other.

What begins as a friendly gathering accompanied by great Italian food and wine, dancing and laughing, soon becomes a war of words, accusations, revealing long-­‐held secrets, and a reflection of self, complete with fists and guns. However, at the end of the film, love and friendship triumph over everything, including the bad. When asked if this ability for family and friends to come above all else was representative of the Italian culture, especially immigrants, Jerry Ciccoritti is quick to tell us yes.

“Absolutely, it completely is which is why I deliberately came up with these 10 characters. The idea was to take five almost boringly simple stories and bump them up against each other to make an interesting plot. To each of these people, their small problems are their world and life. If they lose their restaurant that’s their life, if you don’t know what to do with your career that’s your life, it’s a big deal. And for immigrants in general and specifically to Italians, we’re under the burden of our own mythology. The best and worst thing in the world is to be an Italian immigrant. On one hand everybody loves you because everyone loves all things Italian, and at the same time it’s a burden because we’re just people trying to make our way through, but at the same time we can’t really let go. In the movie these characters are dealing with their own mythology and I hope people get it when they see it,” says Jerry. A big part of this character-­‐driven film is also the character of Tony Gitone himself, a local symbol of the neighbourhood. “Images of male Italianism are a big part of the movie and the biggest is the character of Tony Gitone who symbolizes every superstition, every myth, every cherished piece of cloth we hold, all the good and bad. He’s all of these guys,” says Jerry.

Actor John Cassini adds that this ability to triumph as a group of friends even through the bad is indicative of real friends. “In the end, you come together if you really care about one another because as you get older, you start to realize that those friendships mean a lot more than the exterior stimulations that are out there. I think that was a very universal theme that we could all

latch on to. In terms of us all being Italian, of course everything is just a bit more animated and intense because we’re very expressive people,” he says. And while this universal theme of friendship and its force is evident throughout the film, the Italian element is no doubt obvious. “Italians are human just like anyone else, but I do think that Italians definitely value loyalty and friendship a lot culturally,” says actor Fabrizio Filippo, who plays the film’s central character, Nino-­‐ a role he says was one of the most amazing experiences he knew he was lucky to get. “This process was different than any other process because it wasn’t about memorizing lines; we all helped make the script what it is,” says Fabrizio.

Jerry Ciccoritti decided to call upon his friends and some of the very best Italian-­‐Canadian actors in the industry to be a part of this cast. He was just as excited to work with them, as they were taking on their individual characters. “It’s always wonderful working with friends and great artists and these guys and Paula are rebels. What was really gratifying was that because I knew them, I was able to create characters for them that no one has ever given to them. It was pleasurable for me and very liberating for them,” says Jerry. The feeling is mutual with the cast members. “One of the reasons I was so delighted to be invited to do this movie is because of the cast. We’ve all known each other for many years and we’ve all followed each other’s careers, so to know that I was going to be in a room with these guys and develop a movie with them, it just felt like a very strong family environment and at the same time you really had to bring your A-­‐game because these guys are all such beautifully talented artists. It was one of the most pleasurable filming experiences I’ve had,” says actor John Cassini. Touching upon their Italian roots and heritage was also something the cast members were happy to be able to do and share with others. “I’m excited because my aunts, uncles, cousins who are from the old country are going to see this and it’s something that represents us,” says Fabrizio Filippo.

While the film is centered around and focuses on Italian-­‐ Canadians and the immigrant story, one does not have to be Italian to connect with these characters. Their stories and issues are universal, which is what makes The Resurrection of Tony Gitone a great and interesting film. As a viewer, you almost get the impression of being another visitor in the restaurant, eavesdropping on the conversations happening at this one table of friends, or being a fly on the restaurant wall. The take-­‐away from the film is the importance of finding and accepting your true self and placing value on the friendships you have in life. It is these two things that truly guide us and even help us through life’s battles and journey. If there is one message Jerry Ciccoritti hopes viewers gain from watching the film it’s a simple, yet fundamental one. “Be honest with yourself.”

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone

http://www.classical963fm.com/blog/arts-­‐review/movie-­‐reviews/the-­‐resurrection-­‐of-­‐tony-­‐gitone/

By Marc Glassman | March 28, 2013

Jerry Ciccoritti, director and co-­‐script with Svet Rouskov and Jennifer Deyell Starring: Starring: Tony Nardi (Mario), Fabrizio Filipo (Nino), Paula Rivera (Vanessa Luna), Nick Mancuso (Vince), Ron Lea (Frank),Alvaro di Antonio (Albert), Tony Nappo (Bruno), John Cassini (Leo),Louis di Biano (Eddie), Michael Miranda (John)

The buzz Jerry Ciccoritti, the multiple Gemini (now Canadian Screen Award) winning director of Canadian TV movies (Trudeau, John A.: Birth of a Century, Net Worth, The Life and Death of Nancy Eaton) has assembled an all-­‐star cast of Italian Canadians to make a film shot in the

iconic College Street bistro “Il Gatto Nero.” Among the actors in the film are Tony Nardi, Nick Mancuso and Fabrizio Filippo. Can he burst out of his box as an acclaimed TV director with this feature film?

The genres Melodrama; Italian-­‐American (Ok, Canadian) character study

The premise Nino (Filippo) is back in Toronto, a conquering hero. He’s been in Hollywood for years and now he’s going to star in a film with Vanessa Luna (Rivera), shot in his old hometown. Mario (Nardi), his old friend, decides to throw a private birthday party for Nino at “Il Gatto Nero,”’ and invite a bunch of the old gang to celebrate.

But what should be a happy time turns into a tense one for nearly everyone at the bistro.

One guy, who was mobbed up and now wants to take over “Il Gatto Nero,” realises that his boss doesn’t really intend to leave the business to him. Two old friends are in love with the same woman—or are they? Another old-­‐timer may be losing his beloved restaurant, to a landlord, who is also at the party.

Nino may not be as happy as he seems. Is he about to be fired from his film? And what about his girlfriend Vanessa—why is she attending this “old boy’s club” party?

The performances You have to get beyond the clichés but the actors are brilliant. Particularly great is Nick Mancuso as an aging film director, who is recovering from a quadruple bypass—which doesn’t stop him from drinking and eating too much pasta. Equally top notch is Rivera in the thankless role of the Spanish movie star slumming at a bistro in Little Italy with her boy-­‐toy, Nino.

Tony Nardi, Fab Filippo, Louis di Biano: this is a cast worth celebrating. They all do what they can to make this film a success.

The creator Jerry Ciccoritti is one of Canada’s greatest and most puzzling talents. He’s reeled off success after success on TV but has never been able to make a hit film. Here, his talents are on view: Il Gatto Nero is beautifully evoked, the cinematography is fine and the actors, top notch.

But the script doesn’t work. Ciccoritti is too intelligent to believe in the clichés that are at the heart of the film. By the last 15 minutes, he begins to unravel the plot, exposing its weaknesses.

Perhaps Ciccoritti wants to expose the failures of machismo—and the Italian mythology. But The Resurrection of Tony Gitone doesn’t succeed in doing that, either.

The skinny The Resurrection of Tony Gitone is a love letter to Toronto’s Little Italy and a vehicle that allows some fine actors to shine. It’s a film that has charm and affection at its core. It’s a pity that the plot can’t sustain this film. A lot of talent is on display here, but, sadly, this is a film that should be viewed on TV or DVD, not in cinemas.

Review: The Resurrection of Tony Gitone http://thetfs.ca/2013/03/29/review-­‐the-­‐resurrection-­‐of-­‐tony-­‐gitone/

By William Brownridge | March 28, 2013

Nino (Fab Filippo) is returning to Canada after finally landing a big role in a Hollywood film. With his leading lady, Vanessa (Paula Rivera), on his arm, his family and friends plan a welcoming party for him at Mario’s (Tony Nardi) restaurant. Initially a happy reunion, old rivalries and bad blood start to chip away at the pleasant evening.

Director Jerry Ciccoritti, and much of the cast of The Resurrection of Tony Gitone, have made their living in television, but you would never guess that from the quality of the film. Superb acting, directing, and writing, fill every frame of the movie. With so many different stories to tell though, the ending suffers a little as each story wraps up a little too conveniently. This is easy enough to overlook after becoming so familiar with the characters, and it’s the kind of conclusion that one would hope for.

Dialogue is quick and clever, flowing so freely that you’ll feel as if you’ve stumbled into an actual homecoming party. Everybody just connects so perfectly that nothing feels out of place. It’s one of the most natural films that has come along in quite awhile, and the frequently rapid fire conversation is something you’d expect to see in a Tarantino, or Kevin Smith film. The great combination of talented acting and fantastic writing creates a slow build of tension as more of the background is revealed on the characters.

Leo (John Cassini) just found out his wife is cheating on him, and he suspects it may be another in the group. Vince (Nick Mancuso) is an aging director recovering from heart surgery who thinks that

Vanessa might be his ticket back in. Eddie (Louis Di Bianco) has just closed his restaurant after problems with Al (Alvaro D’Antonio), whose family owns many of the buildings in Little Italy.

It’s these strained relationships, and the friendships that survive, that make the film so fantastic. The film is full of humour, as well as a few moments of strong emotion, and at least one of the stories should manage to strike a chord with viewers. Unfortunately, some of those carefully built stories begin to crumble just before the end, but the great characters make the journey worthwhile.

Is The Resurrection of Tony Gitone Opening Weekend Worthy?

This is definitely one that should be on your weekend viewing list. There are plenty of reasons to be in the theatre this weekend, just be sure that this is one of them. The Resurrection of Tony Gitone starts Friday, March 29, 2013 at The Royal.

The Resurrection Of Tony Gitone Not enough food for thought http://www.nowtoronto.com/movies/story.cfm?content=191775

By Radheyan Simonpillai | March 28, 2013

NOW RATING: N N Toronto’s Little Italy gets its own little movie. Unfortunately, this restaurant-­‐set dramedy has little to chew on, and the presentation is sloppy.

A handful of Italian men get together to celebrate the return of Nino (Fab Filippo), a young actor struggling in Hollywood who’s in town to shoot a movie. Over the course of the evening, every character airs his grievances: a financial rut, a cheating wife, an inability to let go of the past.

Some of these guys can be endearing, like the old movie director (Nick Mancuso) who still has one last passion project on his mind. But others are downright buffoonish, like the former mobster training to be a chef (Tony Nappo) who still may commit murder, depending on how dinner goes.

The cast is remarkable, but they can only do so much with writer/director Jerry Ciccoritti’s script, which throws a whole lot of undercooked drama at the wall in the hope that some of it sticks.

What begins as a film about an older generation of Italians dealing with changes to their lives and neighbourhood over time falls apart into a cloying, shapeless mess.

The food does look great, though.

Opens Friday (March 29) at the Royal.

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone Review

http://dorkshelf.com/2013/03/29/the-­‐resurrection-­‐of-­‐tony-­‐gitone-­‐review/

By Andrew Parker | March 28, 2013

I understand that local independent cinemas are hurting for cash. The economy hasn’t been kind to small time filmmakers or reparatory cinemas, so I can’t begrudge the former for making labours of love with friends in lieu of big budgets and I can’t fully fault the latter for taking a cheque to run a film simply because they need the money. There has been some truly great local films that have come out already this year, so it’s not like what I am about to say is meant to be cattier than it needs to be or a commentary on the whole system.

But a film like The Resurrection of Tony Gitone, the latest microbudget production from TV and feature veteran Jerry Ciccoretti, highlights everything that’s wrong about this practise. This is a truly unwatchable film that’s not in any condition to be released theatrically outside of a festival setting and to ask audiences outside of the friends and family of the participants to pay money to watch it is somewhat dubious and suspect. It’s barely passable by cable access standards. There are only two kind things I can even say about the film. I’ll get to one of them later since it’s a tangible part of the fabric of the film. The other is that at least it isn’t as much of an ego trip as Bruce Pittman’s The Last Movie was last year.

Centering around a group of friends, family, and well-­‐wishers getting together at Il Gato Nero in Toronto’s Little Italy to welcome home a golden boy from the neighbourhood after gaining notoriety in Hollywood, the film positions itself as an ensemble character study that never takes hold. In fact, it takes a while to get used to these character simply because of how stomach churningly unpleasant they are. All these people do are shout like the worst of Italian stereotypes. These aren’t people you want to spend five seconds around. They’re the kinds of people who you want to run immediately

away from. That’s not a judgment. This is a plain fact. These are terrible people, and they’re all played by actors who either can’t act or who can’t do anything to make them seem human, and the script makes My Big Fat Greek Wedding look like a John Cassavetes film.

The first discernable “character” to walk into the restaurant that we know by name is Leo, who comes in toting a gun because his wife has been screwing around on him. He’ll later be reduced to bemoaning how his wife makes a troubling noise every time he enters her vagina or how he’s (very specifically) troubled by the sight of a 50 year old black man’s penis. He was the only person I could distinguish at first because he had a gun, the main character hadn’t even shown up yet, and everyone stopped shouting almost incoherently at each other because he had a gun on him. In fairness, I also say incoherent because the audio mix is as terrible as what’s being said, with actors sometimes getting awkwardly cut off mid-­‐sentence and awkward transitions throughout not helping matters.

Our leading man, Nino, comes in with his Spanish co-­‐star arm candy fresh from the set of “Sofia’s” new movie. I assume this refers to Coppola, whose family name thankfully doesn’t get dragged through the mud here. He gets fired because he’s a terrible kisser and offered the part of “the retarded brother” instead. (But he later specifies he meant “autistic” because all comedy should be authentically hateful, right guys?) His girlfriend, Vanessa, is asked awkwardly at the dinner table about trying to kill herself, and yet, it’s never really explored, probably because she’s the only woman there. There’s the restaurateur who lost his mojo and everyone starts competing for his spot. Most insufferably, there’s a director who “knows Hollywood” and who passed up directing “Ram-­‐BO” because he knocked the director out.

Long passages go by where nothing of even remote consequence or humour ever takes place. If you ever wanted to see a film where characters tell meandering anecdotes that go nowhere or watch them stir a pot without ever seeing what’s in it for almost endless amounts of time, then look no further. There’s even a moments when characters bicker about candles going out and the placement of laughs. And a great deal of it is shot from so far away on such low grade digital video that they might as well have placed the camera across the street.

Possibly the most baffling thing about this is that the film comes courtesy of someone who has been around for decades working in film and television, and this ends up looking almost worse than some high school produced TV shows and webseries. It’s unremittingly ugly to look at and painful to listen to, and yet, I feel bad harping on it because it’s so locally minded that it has to stop every few seconds to name drop local streets and hangouts. It’s that myopic focus and a clear casting of like minded buddies that leads me to the other thing that’s good about it that I mentioned earlier.

At one point, the on-­‐screen filmmaker – and by extension Ciccoritti surrogate – says that the true “balls” is actually going out and doing something on your own. That’s an inarguable and incredibly valid point, and there’s no taking away from the fact that Ciccoritti has made a film on his own terms completely outside the system. But this movie is “balls” and it’s hard to see how anyone involved could ever think this should see the light of day beyond a cast and crew screening or how a cinema could book it in good conscience. These are the kind of films that turn people off from watching local, Canadian, and microbudget films in general.

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone Directed by Jerry Ciccoritti

http://exclaim.ca/Reviews/Film/resurrection_of_tony_gitone-­‐directed_by_jerry_ciccoritti

By Robert Bell | March 28, 2013

Taking place in the heart of Little Italy — Toronto's hot spot for 20-­‐somethings looking to spend a lot of money to crowd into small spaces — Jerry Ciccoritti's singularly male conversation drama, The Resurrection of Tony Gitone, is very deliberately, specifically Italian. It channels a genre popular in the mid-­‐ '90s, where a single setting serves as a breeding ground for male introspection and pretence, often exaggerated by a criminal element or contrived betrayal.

As such, this ersatz showcase for the talents of Toronto-­‐based Italian actors has only a niche appeal, being little more than a series of conversations between archetypal characters.

There's Frankie (Ron Lea), a novelist exploiting familial secrets for personal success; Eddie (Louis Di Bianco), a failed restaurateur; Bruno (Tony Nappo), a chef with a criminal past; Vince (Nick Mancuso), a director that passed on the chance to help Rambo; Leo (John Cassini), a contractor with a deformed penis and cheating wife; and Nino (Fab Filippo), a struggling actor home to brag about his minor success in L.A.

Nino has brought highly popular and successful Spanish actress Vanessa Luna (Paula Rivera) home to show off to his Italian buddies, which is what propels the flimsy plot from beginning to end. They all eat together while discussing "the industry," having loud, obnoxious reactions, when not pairing off in couples to discuss past secrets and scars with utmost melodrama. And since this is a story about the awesomeness of male bonding, the outsider — a woman — is the instigator of conflict and problems.

Each actor does a good job with their respective stereotypical character, having an obvious ease with the other players and situations; it helps make the entire film feel organic, natural and even comic, at times. We genuinely get the sense that these men have known each other for years, being able to vacillate between pathos and anger in the blink of an eye.

It's just unfortunate that everything is so insular — there's really no in for anyone that doesn't share the very specific, almost alienating worldview presented by these men.

Anyone attracted to the material will surely be pleased with what they get, while everyone else will find this a bit of a slog.

(Breakthrough Entertainment)

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone http://wyliewrites.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/the-­‐resurrection-­‐of-­‐tony-­‐gitone/

By Addison Wylie | March 29, 2013

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone is a drama abut traditions, family, and friends – that is, if you can make it out over the yelling and excessive upstaging. Ultimately, that’s what makes Jerry Ciccoritti’s film a particularly annoying watch.

Riding high off of a new gig as a leading male in a popular director’s upcoming movie and clutching an attractive big name actress, Nino (played by Fab Filippo) and his date Vanessa Luna (played by Paula Rivera) make room in their busy schedule to return to Nino’s home in Toronto’s Little Italy.

There, he’s welcomed by family and close friends for an evening of Italian food, culture, and catching up – followed by the occasional outburst.

Ciccoritti wears his influences on his sleeve. The environmental cutaways featuring Little Italy reminds us of how Woody Allen made Paris so likeable in Midnight in Paris, and the banter between the central family in The Resurrection of Tony Gitone has the reminisce of Allen’s writing as well.

But, the main influence I was reminded of throughout Ciccoritti’s project was the work of Robert Altman; especially with dialogue scenes featuring family members talking over each other at this busy family dinner.

However, Altman had a very specific way of directing his chaotic scenes. While the main action was going on and you heard mutters from bit players, that quiet dialogue and those supporting actors always understood that they mustn’t draw the viewers’ attention away from the key components in the scene.

In The Resurrection of Tony Gitone, the actors appear to be likeable – if animated – but they’re all sparing with each other to win the centre stage spotlight. I understand this wild back-­‐and-­‐forth is supposed to signify how rowdy and outspoken this family is, but it becomes a problem when the audience is more interested in plugging our ears than lending them to the film.

The cast are all comfortable with one another and they make the friends and family connection easy to believe. However, I have a feeling these players were cast based on their exuberant personalities and robust personas rather than their acting range – which spans from amiable friendliness to sopping melodramatics.

In the press notes, Ciccoritti says, “I was so jones-­‐ed to do something like this with my friends” which suggests that the cast and crew had fun putting this film together – and that plays well on screen. However, with the limitless shouting and seemingly heavy improv, Ciccoritti needed to keep a tighter reign on his actors. Some scenes read as being so directionless, that instead of becoming like one of the character-­‐driven films it wants to be, it plays more like an Italian variation of a sequel to Friday.

On the technical front, the film has been edited in a clunky manner, using different shots that don’t sync up well enough and add a disconnected quality to scenes. The low, shadowy lighting muddles scenes even further as we keep hoping Ciccoritti will keep things staged inside the Il Gatto Nero restaurant for the rest of his film. Additionally, the score is repetitive, using – what feels like – the same handful of songs out of a stock music file labeled ‘Italian Atmosphere’.

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone has its heart in the right place, offering a fly-­‐on-­‐the-­‐wall perspective to Italian culture. I’m glad the actors – who also mean well – are having a joyous time with a project like this. I just wish I was having as much fun as they were.

WYLIE WRITES’ GUIDE TO EASTER MOVIEGOING http://www.blog.filmarmy.ca/2013/03/wylie-­‐writes-­‐guide-­‐to-­‐easter-­‐moviegoing/

By Addison Wylie | March 31, 2013

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone “The Resurrection of Tony Gitone is a drama abut traditions, family, and friends–that is, if you can make it out over the yelling and excessive upstaging.”

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone (2013) March 29, 2013 http://www.northernstars.ca/2013/resurrection_of_tony_gitone.html

On a sweltering summer night in Toronto's famed Little Italy neighbourhood, an after-­‐hours birthday/homecoming celebration is being held for Nino (Fab Filippo), the handsome golden boy who’s been knocking around L.A. for several years. Now he’s home where he will star in a major director’s new movie. On his arm, his co-­‐star and big-­‐name leading lady, Vanessa Luna (Paula Rivera). Add wine, sumptuous Italian food and a guest-­‐list that’s a cross-­‐section of Italian immigrant life, and stir. Guests include the contractor Leo (John Cassini), who’s just uncovered his wife’s affair; Frankie (Ron Lea), who’s scandalized the family with a tell-­‐all novel; Alberto (Alvaro D’Antonio), an Italian-­‐community media mogul; failed restauranteur Eddie (Louis Di Bianco); mobster-­‐turned-­‐chef Bruno (Tony Nappo); and Vince (Nick Mancuso), the aging director who’s also prone to manipulation by Vanessa Luna. What begins as a joyous gathering soon disintegrates into an explosion of old wounds and long buried secrets in this world where love and friendship trump bad blood as surely as the sun rises on College Street.

Cast adds Italian spice to movie ensemble

By Glen Schaefer| March 21, 2013. http://blogs.theprovince.com/2013/03/21/cast-­‐adds-­‐italian-­‐spice-­‐to-­‐movie-­‐ensemble/

John Cassini, Paula Rivera and Fabrizio Filippo in a scene from The Resurrection of Tony Gitone

Vancouver actor John Cassini’s Italian-­‐Canadian reunion with some Toronto friends just over a year ago is just now making this way to screens big and small.

Cassini headed back to Toronto in the fall of 2011 to join the multi-­‐character comic drama The Resurrection of Tony Gitone, with director Jerry Ciccoritti and a cast that included Fabrizio Filippo, Paula Rivera and Nick Mancuso.

“The starting point of this film was, Jerry thought that our parents came to this country so we could have a better life,” says Cassini. “Have we lived up to our end of the deal?”

He heads back east again next week for the movie’s premiere at Toronto’s Royal Theatre March 29. The movie airs later this year on the Movie Network.

Cassini himself is the son of Italian immigrants, and was friends with the rest of the Toronto-­‐based cast since he started his career there two decades ago before heading west. He first met director Ciccoritti when the two worked together on the B.C.-­‐filmed mini-­‐series Dragon Boys.

The new movie is about a Hollywood actor (Filippo) who returns home with a movie star girlfriend (Rivera, the lone non-­‐Italian in the cast) for a night of celebration with friends at a restaurant. Cassini plays a successful building contractor who discovers that night that his wife is having an affair.

The story was created by the actors and director in tandem with the writers over a period of several months.

“It was very Mike Leigh-­‐ish in style,” Cassini says. “We got together several times, did improvised scenes, with writers taking notes. They would come back with a draft, and then we would work on that.”

They had the structure set when filming began.

More recently, Cassini has joined the second season of the Vancouver-­‐filmed time-­‐travel series Continuum in a recurring role that he can’t talk much about.

“This is my first foray into sci-­‐fi and I’m afraid to get in trouble,” he says. “I play a present day character, I can tell you that.”

That show’s creator-­‐producer, Simon Barry, is another long-­‐time friend; Cassini co-­‐starred in the 1998 B.C.-­‐filmed indie thriller The Falling, which Barry co-­‐wrote.

Further on the series front, Cassini and Ciccoritti are collaborating on a TV series they’ll pitch to networks this spring, called I Owe You, about an ex-­‐con seeking to turn his life around

Breakfast City TV Vancouver : Riaz Talks with John Cassini http://video.citytv.com/video/detail/2415997789001.000000/bt-­‐vancouver-­‐riaz-­‐talks-­‐with-­‐john-­‐ cassini/

Riaz talks with actor John Cassini about his new film 'The Resurrection Of Tony Gitone'.

Global TV – Morning News http://globalnews.ca/video/598654/john-­‐cassini

Wed, May 29 – Actor John Cassini joins Steve to talk about his new project

Filmmaker finances his highly personal project

BY KATHERINE MONK, POSTMEDIA NEWS MAY 31, 2013

http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/movie-­‐ guide/Filmmaker+finances+highly+personal+project/8460347/story.html

On the quiet diamond called the Canadian film scene, Jerry Ciccoritti is a dugout veteran.

Swinging away on small features and serial television since the mid-­‐80s, the Toronto filmmaker has stepped up to bat on close to 100 projects, but he has yet to achieve the same profile as some of his peers.

Not that he's bitter, or anything. Ciccoritti has learned to be stoic about the way show business works, and in many cases, doesn't work at all. Moreover, he decided to transcend the negative Nellies by taking matters into his own hands and financing his last picture with a big chunk of his own money.

Ciccoritti says he ponied up one third of the budget on The Resurrection of Tony Gitone because he was passionate about the content of the personally inspired, but entirely collaborative piece about a group of guys with Italian roots and a passion for the Leafs.

"It's a very specific generation of men," says Ciccoritti over the phone. "These are guys who are dealing with this false past, this false country -­‐ Italy. They were born in Canada but they don't really feel like they belong here. They're disconnected to place."

Ciccoritti says it was actually an ordinary lunch discussion with a friend that spurred him into writing a script. "So I was in Il Gatto Nero having lunch with a friend of mine, a film distributor, with no agenda. You know, just a couple of wops catching up.

"And I guess I got on a rant about our generation of Italian men, who unlike our parents, none of us are the classic cliché of the bricklayer or the manual labourer. We're all filmmakers and actors and poets and as we're sliding into our mid-­‐life cri-­‐sis, we're all wondering who we are, and where we are and how do we deal with this?"

Ciccoritti starts to speak a little faster, a little louder.

"And then I started saying someone should do something about this. Someone should make a movie. I swear to God, I didn't have myself in mind when I said it."

His voice slows to a whisper. "My friend put his hand on my wrist and said if you make this movie, I will distribute it."

Within months, Ciccoritti had a script, a location and a cast of close friends.

No country for middle-­‐aged men

BY KATHERINE MONK, | MAY 30, 2013 HTTP://WWW.VANCOUVERSUN.COM/TOUCH/ENTERTAINMENT/MOVIE-­‐ GUIDE/COUNTRY+MIDDLE+AGED/8457657/STORY.HTML?REL=8457612

Jerry Ciccoritti’s latest screen offering, The Resurrection of Tony Gitone, suggests big drama and an epic scale but takes a subtle turn...more

On the quiet diamond called the Canadian film scene, Jerry Ciccoritti is a dugout veteran. Swinging away on small features and serial television since the mid-­‐80s, the Toronto filmmaker has stepped up to bat on close to 100 projects, but he has yet to achieve the same profile as some of his peers.

Ciccoritti has learned to be stoic about the way show business works, however. Moreover, he decided to transcend the negative Nellies by taking matters into his own hands and financing his last picture with a big chunk of his own money.

Ciccoritti says he ponied up one third of the budget on The Resurrection of Tony Gitone because he was passionate about the film about a group of guys with Italian roots.

“It’s a very specific generation of men,” says Ciccoritti over the phone. “These are guys who are dealing with this false past, this false country — Italy. They were born in Canada but they don’t really feel like they belong here. They’re disconnected to place.”

Ciccoritti says he’s been fascinated by the idea of the mental expat for a while, and it was actually an ordinary lunch discussion with a friend that spurred him into writing a script.

“And I guess I got on a rant about our generation of Italian men, who unlike our parents, none of us are the classic cliché of the bricklayer or the manual labourer. We’re all filmmakers and actors and poets and as we’re sliding into our mid-­‐life crisis, we’re all wondering who we are, and where we are and how do we deal with this?”

Within months, he had a script, a location and a cast.

While the filmmaker went to camera on his own dime, he says he received help from other craftspeople as well as the film community at large. He even got a distribution deal and completion funds.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this it’s that no one ever wants to help you start a movie, but if you’ve already started and it’s going ahead, then everyone wants to help you finish it.”

Actor John Cassini and Director Jerry Ciccoritti http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiXhqV6xZHA

After Earth, Now You See Me, a new documentary with Roméo Dallaire and four other films reviewed

By Volkmar Richter| May 28th, 2013 http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/newmovies/after-­‐earth-­‐now-­‐you-­‐see-­‐me-­‐new-­‐ documentary-­‐rom%C3%A9o-­‐dallaire-­‐and-­‐four-­‐other-­‐films

THE RESURRECTION OF TONY GITONE: Jerry Ciccoritti is one of Canada’s busiest directors, mostly in TV, which is why you may not have heard of him. His Trudeau TV movie of 11 years ago may be his best-­‐known work and won multiple awards. Now he’s created a salute to Little Italy, the Toronto neighborhood he grew up in. We get to see a bit of the street life along College Street in a speedy montage and then spend the rest of the film inside a bistro called Il Gatto Nero to party, tell stories and argue with a group of typical neighborhood characters. There’s the owner, his cook (an ex-­‐Mafia goon), a writer, an unsuccessful restaurateur, a radio station owner and a film director who turned down Rambo years before. As a group they come off as real people but we really only get to know three others.

Fab Filippo plays the guest of honor, an actor who’s been down in Los Angeles building a minor career. He’s brought along a feisty girlfriend (Paula Rivera) to add some spice and a sexy dance. And Vancouver-­‐ actor John Cassini plays a contractor who suspects one of the guests has got a thing going on with his wife. Disputes will boil over, resentments and regrets will emerge and nostalgia for earlier days will ooze. Good try. It’s pleasant although diffuse, well-­‐acted and almost works because the writer-­‐director knows these people. He just put in too many. The director on Friday and John Cassini on Fri and Sat will be at the 6:50 show for a Q&A. (5th Avenue Theatre) 3 out of 5

Movie Review: Canadian film The Resurrection of Tony Gitone rambles like an old lush, but at its heart it’s a revealing trip into the male ego

BY KATHERINE MONK | MAY 30, 2013 HTTP://WWW.THEPROVINCE.COM/ENTERTAINMENT/MOVIE-­‐GUIDE/GUESS+WHAT+LIFE+MOVIE/8460348/STORY.HTML

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone Three stars out of five Starring: Tony Nardi, John Cassini, Nick Mancuso, Fab Filippo, Tony Nappo, Paula Rivera.

Directed by: Jerry Ciccoritti Running time: 91 minutes Unrated

Part Big Night, part Bar Rescue and part rococo lawn ornament, Jerry Ciccoritti’s latest screen offering suggests big drama and an epic scale but takes a subtle turn instead, leading us into a tangled landscape of misshapen male ego.

An ensemble piece set against the backdrop of Toronto’s Italian-­‐Canadian community, and particularly its next generation patriarchs, The Resurrection of Tony Gitone takes place in the space of one night as a group of old buddies reunite for a birthday celebration.

Nino (Fab Filippo) is the de facto prodigal son, returning from his victory over Hollywood to hang out with his father’s old friends, and to show off his new co-­‐star Vanessa Luna (Paula Rivera).

He’s the reason for the party, but his fancy cake has an accident in the opening scene, and according to Brady Bunch prophecy, that spells all kinds of trouble. And no sooner do we enter the doors of the restaurant Il Gatto Nero, than things begin to darken.

We see a group of men. We see a cuckold. We see a gun.

Throw in a few checkered tablecloths, an angry and frustrated cook with access to knives, and a bouquet garni of simmering man issues, and The Resurrection of Tony Gitone starts to sound like a story falling from Tony Soprano’s downcast lips.

Fortunately, this is a Canadian movie. And that means most of the violence – what little of it there is – is restricted to the psychological side of the plot.

For the most part, this is really just a gabfest for the guys as they attempt to wrestle with their very own demons of personal expectation, as well as an underlying, deep-­‐seated sense of alienation.

A lot of these characters feel they are losing their place in the world.

Nino tells people his acting career is soaring, but in reality he’s in the midst of a crisis. Eddie (Louis Di Bianco) is on

the verge of losing his restaurant to a tide of development and gentrification led by his own friend, and Leo (John Cassini) just lost his wife to an interloper.

These men felt they should be sitting in Caesar’s throne, but they ended up on barstools bemoaning their fate.

Ciccoritti doesn’t judge them. He doesn’t have to. They are writhing in a pit of self-­‐loathing having already judged themselves, privately, as failures.

The fun of the movie is watching them gradually come to grips with the reality of their lives as they perform a slow, mental striptease for each other.

Going for Salome instead of McConaughey, the unveiling is more emotional and sensual than it is a shaved parade of guy junk.

The actors are given a chance to lean into their characters and sit there for a while without necessarily doing something.

It’s all very David Mamet, only with larger gesticulations, and a slightly less pretentious tone because we divine a sense of order to madness.

Though this movie seems to ramble like an old lush and has a habit of walking into the corner, Ciccoritti is actually pulling off a subtle – if purposefully clumsy – ballet. These are men after all, and undressing their emotional state in the presence of other men is going to be an awkward dance.

The veteran director of Paris, France and The Life Before This makes the most of it, and so do the actors. Every single person in this movie feels present, which helps overcome certain flaws in the execution of the film itself.

Glitches in the sound mix and a few clunky cuts on the screener I watched may even get fixed before theatrical release, but even so there are problems with the dramatic pacing that may prompt a sigh of “so what?”

And that’s actually not a bad thing because that’s exactly what every guy in this movie is feeling as he’s forced to accept the disappointment of the everyday. As it turns out, life isn’t a movie after all. It’s just a bunch of moments with other human beings, and with yourself, that may – or may not – have a greater sense of purpose.

http://www.canada.com/entertainment/Movie+review+Resurrection+Tony+Gitone/8456359/story.h tml This article can also be seen in the following outlets:

http://www.leaderpost.com/entertainment/story.html?id=8456235

Win a run-­‐of-­‐engagement pass to see The Resurrection of Tony Gitone http://www.straight.com/contests/win-­‐run-­‐engagement-­‐pass-­‐see-­‐resurrection-­‐tony-­‐gitone

Win passes to see the drama in theatres Contest Deadline: Thursday, May 30, 2013, 3:00 am After struggling to make it in Hollywood, Nino finally lands a break when he is cast opposite an international star in a famous director's movie.

Shooting the film in Toronto, his family throws a party to celebrate his success.

As family secrets are revealed and emotions are shown, the little Italian community is in for a night of drama.

A run-­‐of-­‐engagement movie pass to see The Resurrection of Tony Gitone at Fifth Avenue Cinemas.

The Resurrection of Tony Gitone

http://candidindelicacies.tumblr.com/post/52314737664/the-­‐resurrection-­‐of-­‐tony-­‐gitone

Last July, before going to Italy for five months, I had the inkling to contact everyone I knew from Toronto that might find themselves there to potentially get together for some vino and formaggio, or a passeggiata or whatever -­‐ who knew, maybe on the Amalfi Coast, or in the hills of Tuscany.

There was one person in particular, Alvaro, a dear friend and colleague -­‐ whom I had worked with on a Canadian independent film called “Looking for Angelina” some years earlier -­‐ who I thought would be the most likely to have been planning a trip.

When I called to give him the news, it was like no time had passed since the last time we had spoken. Life was pretty much the same on his end, aside from becoming a father ;) But one thing he did mention, in a very casual way was that he had been working on a film with Jerry Ciccoritti. I would never have imagined I would get the chance to see this film here in Vancouver, less than a year after he had mentioned it to me.

Last week or so, I got a Facebook alert about an event that was coming up in Vancouver, it was the Vancouver Premiere of “The Resurrection of Tony Gitone”. And there was Alvaro! On the poster! Along with Tony Nappo who I met about five or so years ago when he and I were on set for another Canadian independent film that friends of mine wrote and produced and starred in called, “Hank and Mike”.

So, originally I was going to go see this film because I knew people in it, had met the director on a couple of occasions (probably at some film festival parties and I think back at Giovanna’s a restaurant, my first ever official serving job, where I was hired because I could speak Italian and the owner thought that I was cute) and also because a local Vancouver actor, acting teacher and coach John Cassini, whom I have never officially met, was in it as well. And as a Vancouver actress myself, I’m always curious to see who’s doing what, and more specifically, who’s doing what with my friends. Ha. But really, I had no idea that I would be so affected by the film.

The entire film is shot at the famous Il Gatto Nero at the corner of College and Crawford Street in Toronto’s Little Italy. I lived a stone’s throw away from Il Gatto Nero for over a year when I lived in Toronto and holy God, I went through a lot of changes and growing up when I lived at 429 Crawford Street. It was quite the apartment, with 2 roommates at any given moment. Though there always seemed to be someone moving in and soon after someone else moving out. The mainstay, was a zany, fun-­‐loving, drama teacher who had a sincere appreciation for

house parties, and boy did we have some shin-­‐digs. We even threw a toga party! DJs, live music, you name it, she made it happen!

Arguably, the biggest thing to come out of that experience was falling in love with my guitar teacher who was a close friend of this Mother Hen of the house. The experience was the closest thing to sorority life that I have ever experienced in my life, though there were only 3 of us living in the house at one time, and none of us were university students any longer. But we were all in different ways artists, or working in the arts, which allowed for a different kind of lifestyle, to say the least.

So, when I sat down in the theatre at Fifth Avenue Cinemas, knowing the seemingly large community that Mr. Cassini is associated with, I thought there would be more people, or maybe more accurately, I hoped. And granted, Friday night was the premiere with a talkback with director Jerry Ciccoritti and John Cassini, it still really kind of broke my heart to only see sixother people in the theatre. Granted, I went to the 6:50pm show on a Wednesday, but still!! A part of me wanted to turn to the people behind me and ask them how they ended up at this particular movie tonight. Because the thing is, in all honesty, if I didn’t have Facebook, and Alvaro wasn’t ON the poster, then despite the fact that I was one degree of separation from so many involved in the film, I’m sure I never would have known that this movie was the one that Alvaro had talked to me about, and obviously, I sure as heck wouldn’t have known that it was playing at a theatre in my city for a mere week’s time!

And the film is gorgeous. The performances are of a calibre that make you feel as if you are part of the party. You don’t even really feel like you’re watching a movie. The mood of Il Gatto Nero is so palpable and reminiscent of so many College Street cafes and restaurants that my heart bounced, and when they opened with a shot of the College and Manning street signs, for reasons I wasn’t even sure of at the time I was instantly transported back to Toronto. Thinking about it now, one of my best friends lived on that block, as well as the aforementioned and somewhat infamous guitar teacher.

The movie wonderfully blends old school Italian cliches with modern characters pointing out the time gap that all too often reveals itself in Toronto’s Italian Landscape. One of the characters, he who wears a pink shirt, and also happens to be my friend, points out, that the Italians in Italy have evolved, and that the gorgeousness of the past should not serve to hold back the evolution into the present, but instead serve to connect the richness of the culture’s history with it, thus celebrating the culture within a more modern context as it is in Italy.

A part of me whole-­‐heartedly agrees with this statement. The part of me that got a different taste of Italy after living there for five months, reveals another side to this equation. My experience showed me that there is still quite an old school mentality that prevails among modern Italian society, amongst the older as well as the younger and most modern generations. And maybe that is the beauty of it. Maybe some cultures are just so rich and full and ancient that their traditions override differences in generational beliefs and ideas. Though this seems strange when you think of the preoccupation with following trends in most of modern Italy, particularly in fashion. But, alas, I think this topic is too large to tackle at this moment in time.

Now, GO!!! SEE this film!!! If you are employed by the film industry or not. This film will make you laugh and warm your heart, and give you a taste of the culture that I miss, in a city that I adore, that taught me more than I can even recall, and that I will inevitably hold space for in my heart for the rest of my life, if not simply in a currency of memories but also in connection to some of my dearest friends and colleagues! May the universe bring me back to Toronto soon.

It’s showing at Fifth Avenue Cinemas on Burrard Street in Vancouver, BC.

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