After World War II, Italian neo-realism emerged as the most appreciated cinema in the world. The great films of Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, and Vittorio De Sica turned eyes to Italy and set the stage for a new generation of filmmakers looking beyond the gloom and economic tragedy of the era and toward the issues and opportunities of modern industrialized society. The Portland Art Museum’s exhibition, “Italian Style: Fashion Since 1945,” provides the inspiration for this survey of iconic Italian and Italian-set classics from the 1950s and 60s. During this era, Italian fashion, and everything from Italian thought, attitude, and automobiles to food, design, and Vespas, influenced audiences, filmmakers and culture worldwide—especially in the United States. A legacy of alluring films, directors, and stars timelessly endures, still providing inspiration and an unmistakably Italian vision of pop culture cool. Free admission for Portland Art Museum members—tickets for members available starting 30 minutes before the screening. Limited to the first 200 members on a first-come, first-served basis. Lines will form outside the Portland Art Museum’s Hoffman entrance.

Sponsored in part by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura.

Internationally acclaimed Swedish director Ruben Östlund began his career in the 1990s directing skiing films before moving on to shorts and features. His new film, FORCE MAJEURE, won the Grand Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard competition at the Cannes Film Festival and was Sweden’s submission for this years’ Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. “In Östlund’s bracing, darkly funny movies, modern life takes shape as a series of simultaneously devastating and absurd crises, no less real for being imagined, and the civilized veneer of Western bourgeois society barely conceals all manner of foibles and prejudices. His deconstructions of ego and privilege are elegant provocations, designed to defy easy identification and, in his words, “make the audience take a moral stand on its own.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center.

This touring retrospective is produced by Comeback Company, in partnership with the Swedish Film Institute and Plattform Produktion, with additional support from the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, the Embassy of Sweden in the U.S. and the Consulate General of Sweden in New York. Thanks to the Scandinavian Heritage Foundation, Portland, for sponsoring these screenings.

For more information on this touring program, visit comebackcompany.com/RubenOstlund