Italian students Zoom with special guest

On March 16, students in the Italian cinema class FLIT3050, taught by College of Liberal Arts Professor and Associate Dean for Educational Affairs Giovanna Summerfield, were able to analyze one of the assigned films with its director.

After watching the Italian docu-fiction film “Angela,” students discussed the film’s plot, techniques and gender roles with director Roberta Torre. Torre is a Milanese eclectic director whose cinematic works “Tano da Morire” (1997), “Sud Side Stori” (2000), “Mare Nero,” (2006) and “Lost Kisses” (2012) are portraits of complicated true stories taking place in Sicily.

Torre’s films are notable for her attention to detail–including how she uses color, light, mood, costumes and the superb acting. Her films have been presented in some of the biggest and important international film festivals, from Cannes to Venice, from Sundance to Berlin, and have been recognized with some of the highest Italian awards, such as David di Donatello and Nastri d’Argento.

Torre has served as artist in residence at Mills College in California, held a master class at Bucknell University, Pennsylvania and at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. In Italy, she has taught cinema classes at the Corso in Fine Arts dell’Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia and the Centro Sperimentale di Cinema di Palermo. Torre wrote the foreword of the recent volume authored by Summerfield, Sicily on Screen (2020).

Torre is also the granddaughter of famed Italian engineer Pierluigi Torre, who invented the Lambretta, a contemporary and sophisticated rival of the Vespa scooter.

This is the second time that Roberta Torre visited Italian courses at Auburn. She is always willing to hold discussions with students and is willing to share her cinematic expertise and artistic sensibility.