Two films are worth recommending in SIFF's New Italian Cinema Festival: one because it is actually good, the other because it has cultural value. The one that is actually good is Fortapàsc, which is based on a real story about a journalist who was murdered in 1985 for investigating local mobsters. The film has a strong cast, an excellent pace, some really startling moments, fluid photography, and great uses of bad '80s music and clothes.

The other film, which has cultural value, is called Ex. On its surface, the movie is a comedy (and often a funny comedy) about relationships that broke prematurely or without real consideration or thought or work. Set in Rome, the film juggles these relationships, each related to the others in a direct and indirect way. In the end, all the relationships meet their truth. That is the surface. The deep part of this film concerns the director's attempt to build a kind of morality for the amoral global age. All of the characters in the movie are members of the global consumerist culture. They speak English easily, have good jobs, live in comfortable apartments, communicate with the latest technologies. This class space, however, makes it easy for them to be independent, to go where they want to go, to fuck whomever they want to fuck. The director wants his subjects to have none of this freedom. His plot forces them to renounce their freedom and accept the confinement of their relationships. Indeed, one character in the film gives up a glamorous, living lover and returns to the grave of his dead wife—seriously, he does this. Ex is Hollywood for Italians. SIFF Cinema, Thurs—Sat, various times.