Stockholm Film Festival

You never know what goes on behind closed doors. Even a beautiful waterfront house on City Island, New York can harbor something unpleasant - like the Rizzo family.

In his latest feature, director Raymond De Felitta seizes the irresistible opportunity of playing house with a cohort of tragicomic characters - a prison guard father who dreams of becoming an actor, his reliable but sexually starved wife, their daughter who strips instead of studying, and a son who is bound to a peculiar sexual fetish. Between them they share a dozen secrets, the most benign of which is that they all smoke. Passionate and loud, the Rizzo's daily routine consists by turns of sneaking around or arguing loudly amongst themselves. Add mysterious ex-con Tony, whom Vince has for some inexplicable reason has decided to welcome into the family home, and things are bound to explode.

In keeping with the spirit of De Felitta's previous film "Two Family House" - the tone ranging from hysterically camp to disarmingly sincere - "City Island" is the story of an enclave of eccentricity in the middle of humdrum America.
SARAH PÅLVALL

Cast

Alan Arkin, Andy Garcia, Dominik García-Lorido

Producer

Andy GARCIA (CineSon), Lauren VERSEL (Lucky Monkey Pictures), Maria Teresa ARIDA (Lucky Monkey Pictu

Script

Raymond De Felitta

Cinematography

Vanja Cernjul

Music

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek

Spoken language

English

 

Other films from the American Independents section

See all the festival films from 2009