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• Educational Travel Program to MODENA : April 11-25, 2026

  • Start
    11 Apr 2025
  • End
    25 Apr 2026
  • Location
    Modena, Italy
  • Spaces left
    0

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  Improve your Italian language skills while exploring Modena and the Emilia Romagna region!  

  Recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its extraordinary architectural masterpieces, Modena is also celebrated for its rich culinary traditions, iconic sports cars, and world-class opera heritage.

  Your 2 week-stay will include daily language classes (Mon-Fri) at Romanica, Accademia Italiana di Lingua e Cultura, an accredited School for the teaching of Italian, recognized by Italian Ministry of Education, where you will improve your grammar and conversation skills.

  On this exclusive itinerary created for a small group (max 14 people), you will discover the history and culture of Modena and nearby jewel towns, including Bologna, Parma, and Mantova.

  You will explore the region's artistic masterpieces, experience Modena's love for music and fast cars and savor and learn about its culinary excellences, including traditional balsamic vinegar, Parmigiano Reggiano, tortellini, and Lambrusco wine.

  I am excited to be your tour leader again in 2026 and look forward to traveling with you! For questions, please email astrid@theitalianculturalcenter.org.

  Astrid Garino, MD

  President of ICC 

  For detailed information on the itinerary and package, click HERE
  
  

  Rates:

  • $5,400 per person (single room occupancy)
  • $4,260 per person (double room occupancy)

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• Torino and Piemonte: Educational Trip – October 10-24, 2026

  • Start
    10 Jan 2026
  •  
    6:00 AM
  • End
    10 Oct 2026
  •  
    11:00 AM
  • Location
    Torino
  • Spaces left
    6

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  TORINO

  October 10 - 24, 2026

  Given the popularity of this destination, we are returning to Torino again in 2026! I am delighted to lead you to discover my hometown, a true gem off the beaten path. 

  Torino is a elegant city, rich in history, once Italy's first capital, known for its world- class museums, art , stunning Baroque and Art Nouveau architecture, expansive piazzas and covered arcades (porticoes), perfect for walking. A paradise for foodies, Torino is also famous for its Aperitivo culture, delicious  food (chocolate!) and historic cafés.

  Our itinerary will also take you to the countryside of Piedmont, outside Turin: enjoy the excitement of a Truffle hunt in the beautiful Langhe region, famous for its stunning landscapes and some of Italy's best wines (Barolo, Barbaresco, Nebbiolo) and specialty foods (white truffle, hazelnuts).  

  Your immersion in Piedmontese culture will include a 2-week language course  where you will have the opportunity to improve your language skills. Language classes are offered at beginner and more advanced levels.

  Torino and Piedmont offer an authentic Italian experience with fewer crowds than other destinations in Italys: truly a fantastic destination that will make a memorable vacation. 

  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/t-magazine/turin-italy-guide-hotels-restaurants.html

  https://foodandtravel.com/food/cover-interviews/somaia-hammads-turnin

  For details of the itinerary, please click HERE.  

  Please review, sign and return the Waiver if you decide to participate to the trip.
  

  I am looking forward to lead you in this next adventure! 

  Astrid Garino, MD
  President, The Italian Cultural Center of Minneapolis/St.Paul

  Registration opens January 10, 2026. 

  _____________________________________________________________

  
  

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• SPECIAL SCREENING of STROMBOLI, directed by Roberto Rossellini

  • When
    20 Mar 2026
  •  
    6:00 PM - 9:45 PM
  • Location
    THE HEIGHTS THEATER: 3951 Central Ave NE, Columbia Heights, MN 55421

  

  The Italian Cultural Center and The Italian Film Festival of Minneapolis / St. Paul, in partnership with the historic Heights Theater, proudly present a special screening of Stromboli in celebration of the Center’s 20th Anniversary. 
  
  

  CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

  ICC Members $25 
  Non-Members $30

  ICC members: keep an eye out for your discount code in the ICC newsletter, or email tiziana@theitalianculturalcenter.org to receive it directly.
  
  Discount applied at Checkout [IN THE UPPER LEFT CORNER OF THE SCREEN]

  

  
  

  Following the remarkable success of the festival’s 17th edition (February 26–March 1), which featured 10 contemporary films and 5 classic masterpieces, including a special selection Honoring the Twin Cities, and drew many sold-out screenings, this event offers audiences a unique opportunity to continue celebrating Italian cinema. 
  
  Stromboli holds a special place in the Center’s history, it was the very first film ever screened. This milestone occasion is dedicated to Massimo and Anna Bonavita, cofounders of the Italian Cultural Center and the Italian Film Festival of Minneapolis / St. Paul, honoring their vision and enduring contribution to the arts and cultural fabric of the Twin Cities.
  
  SPECIAL GUESTS
  
  Alessandro Rossellini, grandson of Roberto Rossellini and director of the documentary The Rossellinis, will connect live from Italy for the Q&A.
  
  Richard Peña, Emeritus Professor, Columbia University and Director Emeritus, New York Film Festival, and distinguished guest at the recent 17th Italian Film Festival of Minneapolis / St. Paul, will introduce Stromboli, provide a post-screening analysis and lead the Q&A.
  
  Tommaso Cammarano, Artistic Director of The Italian Film Festival of Minneapolis / St. Paul.
  
  SCHEDULE                                       

  6:00 PM: Live Organist + Welcome Drink
  6:30 PM: Introduction by Richard Peña
  6:45 PM: Screening of Stromboli followed by a post-screening analysis and Q&A with Richard Peña, Alessandro Rossellini and Tommaso Cammarano.

  CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

  ICC Members $25 
  Non-Members $30

  ICC members: keep an eye out for your discount code in the ICC newsletter, or email tiziana@theitalianculturalcenter.org to receive it directly. Discount applied at Checkout.

  Please note that this screening is not included with the All-Access Pass or 6-Pack Pass of the Italian Film Festival.

  
  ABOUT THE FILM
  
  The first collaboration between Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman is a devastating portrait of a woman’s existential crisis, set against the beautiful and forbidding backdrop of a volcanic island. After World War II, a Lithuanian refugee (Bergman) marries a simple Italian fisherman (Mario Vitale) she meets in a prisoner of war camp and accompanies him back to his isolated village on an island off the coast of Sicily. Cut off from the world, she finds herself crumbling emotionally, but she is destined for a dramatic epiphany. Balancing the director’s trademark neorealism—exemplified here in a remarkable depiction of the fishermen’s lives and work—with deeply felt melodrama, Stromboli is a revelation.
  Rossellini’s use of on-location shooting, natural lighting, and non-professional actors creates an immediacy and realism that immerses the audience in Karin’s emotional, physical and psychological struggles. The stark, rugged landscapes of Stromboli reflect her inner turmoil, turning the island into a living character whose unpredictability mirrors the challenges of human survival and resilience.
  The film’s narrative is both a personal story and a social critique, exploring themes of displacement, gender roles, and the tension between individual desire and communal expectation. Ingrid Bergman delivers a masterful, restrained, empathetic performance, conveying both vulnerability and determination.
  
  DIRECTOR'S BIO: ROBERTO ROSSELLINI
  
  One of the founders of Italian Neorealism. Roberto Rossellini (1906–1977), originally trained as an engineer, began his career in film in the 1930s directing documentaries and short films, including works for the Italian government. His breakthrough came with “Roma città aperta” (1945, Grand Prize at Cannes, New York Critics Circle Award), which, along with “Paisà” (1946) and Germania Anno Zero constitutes the so called “War Trilogy” Rossellini’s neorealist films often explored ordinary lives under extraordinary historical circumstances. “Paisà” (1946, Venice Biennale Award) portrayed the encounters between Italians and Allied forces during the liberation, while “Germania anno zero” (1948) examined the moral and physical devastation of postwar Germany. These powerful films contributed to the spiritual rehabilitation of an entire culture and people, and that of the very soul of Italy, through cinema.
  The trilogy starring Ingrid Bergman, his wife at the time, composed by “Stromboli” (1950) “Europa ’51” (1952), and “Viaggio in Italia” (1954) constituted a not well received, major departure from his “war” films. The three films, in fact, focused on stories of people dealing with very intimate, personal journeys and spiritual experiences and audiences at the time found the films to be too experimental if not plainly dull melodramas; nonetheless, the films of this trilogy greatly influenced the future course of cinema, marking the very beginning of modern cinema.
  
  

  ABOUT OUR SPECIAL GUESTS:
  
  Alessandro Rossellini has collaborated, as stills photographer and production assistant, on the films of Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese and David Lynch, and has worked as assistant photographer with Bruce Weber, Michel Comte and Marco Glaviano. He has also worked as a freelance photographer for Vogue, Amica and Repubblica, and has directed documentaries on eminent figures in Italian cinema. The Rossellinis (2020), his first feature film closed the International Film Critics’ Week in Venice. Prior to this first feature film, Alessandro Rossellini’s short documentary Viva Ingrid! was also selected for the Venice Film Festival back in 2015.
  
  

  Richard Peña is an Emeritus Professor of Film and Media Studies at Columbia University, where he specialized in film theory and international cinema. From 1988 to 2012, he was the Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Director of the New York Film Festival. At the Film Society, Richard Peña organized retrospectives of many film artists, including Michelangelo Antonioni, Abbas Kiarostami, King Hu, Robert Aldrich, Roberto Gavaldon, Ritwik Ghatak, Kira Muratova, Youssef Chahine, Yasujiro Ozu, Carlos Saura, Nagisa Oshima and Amitabh Bachchan, as well as major film series devoted to African, Cuban, Polish, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Hong Kong, Arab, Korean, Swedish, Turkish and Argentine cinema. In 2009, Peña co-curated at Lincoln Center the largest exhibition of early African American cinema ever organized. In 1995, together with Unifrance Film, he created “Rendez-Vous with French Cinema,” the most important showcase presented each year in North America, which continues today.

  A frequent lecturer on film internationally, in 2014–2015, he was a Visiting Professor in Brazilian Studies at Princeton; in 2015–2016, a Visiting Professor in Film Studies at Harvard; and in 2022, a Visiting Professor in Art History at La Sorbonne. He has also taught courses at Beijing University, Gedai Art Institute (Tokyo), la Universidad de Cine (Buenos Aires), the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Universidad Católica de Chile and the University of São Paulo. In May 2016, he was the recipient of the “Cathedra Bergman” award at UNAM in Mexico City, where he offered a three-part lecture series, “On the Margins of American Cinema.” In 2024, he was the Walt Disney Professor of American Art and Culture at Tsinghua University in Beijing; in spring 2025, a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University Qatar; and in fall 2025, a Visiting Professor at Hong Kong University. A series he curated on silent U.S. “race movies” will be presented at the Pathé Foundation in Paris in April 2026.
  
  

  Tommaso Cammarano is Artistic Director of the Italian Film Festival of Minneapolis / St. Paul. He studied screenwriting at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, and earned a Master’s in Film from Columbia University. Throughout the years he has directed and produced short and feature films that screened film festivals around the world and at the Walker Art Center, written for Italian television, worked in film distribution in New York and started a new career in Health Care/Senior Living, holding roles from Executive Director to his latest, beloved one of Director of Cultural Programming and Events for a Senior Living in downtown Minneapolis. IFF 2026 marked the sixth year of Tommaso serving as Artistic Director of the festival.
  
  

  ABOUT THE HEIGHTS THEATER:
  
  The Heights Theater was constructed in 1926 by Gluek Brewery heir Arthur Gluek as a real estate venture when Prohibition was enacted. Designed in the Beaux Arts style of the last century, the Heights building was a simple neighborhood movie house showcasing local talent in stage plays and "High Class Amateur Vaudeville Acts."
  
  The Heights has survived at least three fires, one bombing, and "The Big Blow of 1949" when a Fridley tornado twisted the tower sign. Over the years, the original charm of the theater was covered over with drywall and turquoise paint and was a discount theater. Tom Letness bought the theater in November of 1998 and scoured the original blueprints, which were housed at the University of Minnesota. They revealed that the ornamental plaster of polychromed woodwork and the front windows had been walled-up during World War II. Letness worked over the next decade to bring the theater back to its initial glory.
  
  A scarlet motorized Grande drape covers the proscenium stage and gilded grills conceal the organ's pipework and antique chandeliers are suspended from the ceiling restored with 2600 Egyptian lead crystals. Hand-painted reproduction Edison Mazda bulbs in four colors on separate circuits allow a multitude of effects from the 152 lights above the two hundred and forty seats, themselves installed in 2012. While working on the restoration, Letness discovered an orchestra pit under the floor where the mighty Wurlitzer Theater Organ now rises for Friday and Saturday night concerts and special events.
  

  The Heights has a grand piano in the lobby and an upright piano in the auditorium connected to the organ. The 1926 Williams Brothers steam boiler was replaced with two new high-efficiency hot water boilers and new electrical service as well as plumbing upgrades has been completed over the years, and a new air conditioner was installed in 2022. A sparkling new tower sign was installed in 2002 and crowns the marquee.

  After many years, Letness has restored the Heights Theater and today it is recognized as one of the most beautiful theaters in the Midwest, the “jewel of the Twin Cities”.

  
  
  

  
  

  
  

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• IL CIRCOLO LETTERARIO: Rediscovering Goliarda Sapienza after the Italian Film Festival of Minneapolis / St. Paul

  • When
    29 Mar 2026
  •  
    1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
  • Location
    The Italian Cultural Center, 250 Third Ave N., Suite 625, Minneapolis, MN 55401
  • Spaces left
    20

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  Following the recent screening of Fuori at the 17th Italian Film Festival of Minneapolis / St. Paul, many attendees shared that they wished they had been able to participate in our earlier Circolo dedicated to Goliarda Sapienza. In response to this renewed interest, we are pleased to offer this Circolo Letterario again on March 29.

  

  Presented in English by Pieranna Garavaso, professor emerita at the University of Minnesota Morris, this Circolo will focus on the life and work of writer Goliarda Sapienza (1924–1996), author of the now celebrated novel L’arte della gioia (The Art of Joy, 1998). Sapienza’s writing, long overlooked in her lifetime, has come to be recognized for its daring exploration of personal freedom, female autonomy, and the quest for authenticity in 20th-century Italy. The first section of L’arte della gioia has also recently been brought to the screen in a successful four-part television series of the same name, directed by Valeria Golino, further renewing interest in Sapienza’s work.
  
  At the festival, audiences were deeply moved by Fuori, directed by Mario Martone, which brings to life a pivotal chapter of Sapienza’s story described in her book L'università di Rebibbia, recounting her time in Rome’s Rebibbia prison.

  Through both her literature and this cinematic portrait, we will discuss the social, cultural, and political context that shaped Sapienza’s life and her fearless, uncompromising voice.

  
  

  Pieranna Garavaso is native Italian and came to the US to earn a PhD in Philosophy (at the U of Nebraska Lincoln). She taught Philosophy at the University of Minnesota Morris for 34 years. She was awarded the UMN Morris Alumni Association Teaching Award (2003), the Horace T. Morse Alumni Association Undergraduate Teaching Award (2004) and the UMN Morris Faculty Research Award (2017). Her areas of research include History of Analytic Philosophy, Philosophy of Mathematics, and Feminist Philosophies.  She has published articles in Italian and English and authored, co-authored or edited several books; the last collection she has edited is the Bloomsbury Companion to Analytic Feminism (2018).  As Emerita/retired she plans to devote more time to reading and discussing Italian literature.

  
  

  In 2021, ICC was appointed Presidio Letterario of the Società Dante Alighieri (DA), one of the most important Italian institutions for the promotion and appreciation of Italian language and culture since 1889. ICC is now part of a network of cultural centers in Italy and abroad promoting events and initiatives related to Italian literature. Since 2009 DA has officially been part of the jury of Premio Strega, the most prestigious Italian literary award.

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