Italian Film Festival film reviews continued....

Ok, continuing with reviews of some of the films shown at Atlanta's 4th Annual Italian Film Festival, which wrapped up last week.

"Il papà di Giovanna" ("Giovanna's Father") is next up, and it received the highest rating of any of the films shown, with a score of 9.388, according to the film festival organizers.

It stars Silvio Orlando, a veteran Italian actor who plays a schoolteacher living in Bologna before World War II (the film continues through the war, though the family is forced to leave the city).

His daughter, Giovanna, is considered delicate, special, different, sensitive -- all the words people use to describe someone who may or may not have mental problems.

Silvio Orlando's character, Michele Casali, dotes on his daughter in a vain effort to shore up her confidence. Right from the start, the relationship is moving -- his doomed efforts to save this girl really get to you.

Again I won't say anything more about the plot -- no spoiler alert here! (THOUGH, if you understand Italian very well and you don't want to know too much, you may want to only watch the beginning of the trailer).

But let me add a few other key details. The movie is the work of famed Italian director Pupi Avati, whose other films include one of my favorites, "Il testimone dello sposo" (1998), which in English was called "The Best Man."

I definitely recommend this film. And in fact, when I saw this film along with "Alza La Testa" (see previous review), I was sure the film festival was on the right track. I think people go to a film festival to see something different, something jarring perhaps, something profound, something that says something.

And "Il papà di Giovanna" fits the bill.