Cal Lutheran to screen 'Life is Beautiful'

(THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Nov. 1, 2016) California Lutheran University will present a free screening of the Oscar-winning 1997 film “Life is Beautiful” as part of its International Film Festival.

“Life is Beautiful” will be shown in Italian with English subtitles at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 16, at Muvico Thousand Oaks 14.

The 1997 comedy-drama won the Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix award and Academy Awards for Best Actor, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Music - Original Dramatic Score. Its many other honors include Best Actor from the Screen Actors Guild, nine David di Donatello Awards including Best Film and the Toronto International Film Festival People’s Choice Award.

Roberto Benigni portrays Guido Orefice, an Italian Jewish bookshop owner who uses humor and his vivid imagination to shield his young son Giosue from the horrors and difficulties of their lives in a Nazi concentration camp. Guido invents an elaborate game in which Giosue must perform tasks to earn enough points to win a tank.

Benigni directed “Life is Beautiful” and co-wrote it with Vicenzo Cerami. The film was partially inspired by Rubino Romeo Salmon’s book “In the End, I Beat Hitler,” which incorporates irony and black comedy, and Benigni’s father, who spent two years in a German labor camp during World War II and used humor in telling his children about the experience.

Commercially successful, “Life is Beautiful” was the highest-grossing Italian film inside that country until five years ago.

The film is rated PG-13 for Holocaust-related thematic elements.

Cal Lutheran’s Department of Languages and Cultures and Pearson Library are sponsoring the event.

The theater is located at 166 W. Hillcrest Drive. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

For more information, contact Patricia Egle at egle@callutheran.edu or 805-493-3450.