Lavazza Drive-In Film Festival: World cinema al fresco is just four wheels away

Need an excuse to get out of the house… and into your car?

For the next few weeks, producers of the Italian Contemporary Film Festival have created the not-entirely-Italian Lavazza Drive-in Film Festival onscreen at Ontario Place, in a setting for 185 properly spaced vehicles.

The lakeside event runs from July 20 to July 31 with lineup of a dozen current movies, direct from atop foreign box office standings and virtual film festivals. The opening night feature is the Toronto premiere of The Cuban, directed by Italian-Canadian Sergio Navarretta  and co-starring Louis Gossett Jr. as an Alzheimer’s patient at a nursing home, a former Cuban jazz star, whose memories return randomly when sung to by his caregiver (Ana Golja).

A scene from the Russian tank movie T34.

The film, which features soundtrack music by Cuban pianist Hilario Durán, will include a pre-show Q&A with the director and cast members..

Pre-show programming – simulcast on CHIN radio AM 1540 - will be part of each night’s schedule from 7-9 p.m.. Contributors to this blog, including Liam Lacey, Karen Gordon, Jim Slotek, Bonnie Laufer and Thom Ernst, are contributing pre-taped critics’ spots discussing themes and offering info-bits about the evening’s feature.

Other scheduled movies include the box-office champ Chinese crime drama Sheep Without A Shepherd (July 22), the hit Russian tank-battle movie T34 (July 28), the real-life inspired Welsh movie Fisherman’s Friends (July 26), The Peanut Butter Falcon, with Shia LaBeouf and Dakota Johnson (July 29) and the long-running Italian comedy trio Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo in I Hate Summer (July 27).

For film descriptions, screening times and ticket information, visit  www.icff.ca