Director: Marco Bellocchio
Cast: Sergio Castellitto, Jacqueline Lustig, Chiara Conti, Alberto Mondini, Gianni Schicci.

Screening: Saturday, September 29, 1:30 pm, SIFF Cinema, McCaw Hall, Seattle Center, 321 Mercer Street, Seattle, Admission FREE.

Deemed blasphemous by the Roman Catholic Church, MY MOTHER'S SMILE is a fascinating portrait of a man who is forced to reconcile with his own atheism after receiving a shocking appeal from the Church for his participation in the canonization of his "saintly" mother. Ernesto (Sergio Castellitto) is a successful painter/illustrator, recently separated from his wife, but entirely devoted to his impressionable young son, Leonardo.

To his dismay Ernesto learns that his family, including his wife, one of his brothers and his covetous Aunt, has been quietly spearheading a campaign for over three years to canonize his mother behind his back. The family fears that Ernesto's atheist conviction and his disdain for his dead mother would destroy any hope of winning beatification and the rewards that each family member expects to gain from it. Ernesto also discovers that his wife has enrolled Leonardo in religion classes steering the boy into a growing obsession with God.

In his heart, Ernesto doesn't believe his mother should be a saint but he is the one person who can reveal information that will ensure her canonization.

Director: Marco Bellocchio
Cast: Maya Sansa, Luigi Lo Cascio, Roberto Herlitzka, Piergiorgio Bellochio, Giovanni Calcagno.

Screening: Sunday, September 30, 1:30 pm, SIFF Cinema, McCaw Hall, Seattle Center, 321 Mercer Street, Seattle, Admission FREE.

The kidnapping and killing of Aldo Moro, Italy's former prime minister and head of the Christian Democrat party, was a cataclysmic event no Italian can forget. Moro was taken hostage by Red Brigade members in March 1978; almost two months elapsed while negotiations were pursued in vain. His bullet-riddled body was found on the ninth of May after a phone call alerted the authorities. A shocking crime had been committed and Italy teetered on the edge of political chaos. Marco Bellocchio turns to this troubled period of Italian history in GOOD MORNING, NIGHT, producing a film of immense complexity and devastating emotional power. In GOOD MORNING, NIGHT, we watch as a young woman, Chiara (Maya Sansa), moves into a new apartment with her boyfriend. On the face of it, she lives an ordinary, routine existence, working in an office and keeping to herself. Her life, however, is a carefully constructed act, concealing her actual existence as a member of the extreme Italian terrorist group, the Red Brigades. When Moro is brought to the apartment to be 'tried' and executed for his supposed crimes, Chiara must struggle to decide whether the choices she is making are truly justified.