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”.
