San Diego's Italian Film Festival turns 20 this year, and it's celebrating with a launch party Saturday at The Brain Observatory downtown, a program built around the theme of legacy, and a lineup that stretches from a long-lost Fellini script to a Paolo Sorrentino political drama fresh off a Venice Film Festival win. The festival was built on the vision of its late founder, who imagined it as a gathering place where movies were just the excuse to bring people together over food, wine, and conversation.
That opening celebration, set for Saturday at 725 W Broadway, will feature highlights from past short films, Italian food and wine, and a silent auction honoring founder Victor Laruccia, according to Times of San Diego. Laruccia, the festival's late founder, died in March 2022 at age 80 from stomach cancer, KPBS reported. The festival was founded to approach film from an Italian perspective, according to KPBS.
Artistic Director Antonio Iannotta, who leads a post-film conversation after every screening in the lineup, told KPBS: “Victor was a film lover, but more than that, he was a people person. He wanted to have people around him. He wanted to share a movie as much as he wanted to share a meal together.” Iannotta described the piazza metaphor that still guides the festival as an emphasis on gathering in person, sharing food and wine, and talking through films together, the outlet reported. The festival now runs under Executive Director Valentina Cartareggia, a Milan-born marketing specialist who relocated to San Diego in 2023 and was appointed in late 2024 to oversee operations and expand community partnerships alongside Iannotta, according to Italy2California.
Shorts Program Opens at Digital Gym Cinema
Following the launch celebration, the festival opens its Ristretto shorts program on September 30 at Digital Gym Cinema, per KPBS. The 2026 edition marks the eighth annual Ristretto Awards, a competition dedicated to short narrative films made by Italian directors or exploring Italian culture and identity, and it includes a competition category for student films, KPBS reported.
The Ristretto shorts culminate at the closing-night Festa on October 10, a party and awards ceremony featuring food, wine, and a screening of the winning short films, KPBS reported.
Fellini's Rediscovered Script Opens the Feature Lineup
The feature-film program follows a one-film-per-day schedule and opens October 1 at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park with “Naples to New York,” per KPBS. The Museum of Photographic Arts, part of the San Diego Museum of Art, is a venue for SDIFF feature screenings, according to the San Diego Italian Film Festival. The 2024 film follows two Neapolitan children journeying to New York to escape poverty in postwar Italy, KPBS reported, and it's based on a rediscovered screenplay by Federico Fellini.
The treatment, co-written by Federico Fellini and Tullio Pinelli in the mid-1940s, was discovered in 2006, according to Screen Daily. Director Gabriele Salvatores, an Oscar winner, adapted the treatment into the finished film, the trade outlet reported.
Alzheimer's Advocates Join Post-Screening Discussion
Midway through the festival, SDIFF partners with the San Diego chapter of the Alzheimer's Association for a screening of “Per Te (For You),” which depicts a man in his 40s affected by an aggressive form of Alzheimer's, per KPBS. A representative from the Alzheimer's Association's San Diego chapter will join a planned post-screening discussion about Alzheimer's research and care in the region, KPBS reported.
A Writer's Legacy and a Grandmother's Story
Also on the schedule is “Fuori,” inspired by the life of Italian writer Goliarda Sapienza and depicting her meeting young inmates in prison, per KPBS. Sapienza wrote the novel “The Art of Joy,” which appears in the film's background, KPBS noted. The “Fuori” screening will include a special introduction and post-screening Q&A with professor Clarissa Clò, per KPBS.
On October 4, the festival's Sunday morning matinee brings “Gioia Mia (Sweetheart),” a story about a grandmother and her grandson, KPBS reported. Students from Little Fish Comic Book Studio, a festival partner, will create an illustration, poster, or one-page comic inspired by the film, and the festival will host a panel with those students that same day, per the same report.
Sorrentino's Venice Winner Closes the Festival
The festival's closing-night screening on October 9 is “La Grazia,” which reunites director Paolo Sorrentino with actor Toni Servillo, who plays Italian president Mariano de Santis, KPBS reported. De Santis has six months remaining in his term and is depicted weighing whether to sign laws on euthanasia, according to the same account; a post-film discussion about the drama is planned for closing night.
Servillo's performance earned him the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Two decades after Laruccia first imagined the festival as a piazza for gathering around film, the anniversary lineup closes with the same formula he set out: a screening, a shared table, and a conversation that doesn't end when the credits roll.
