Sydney Film Festival Nancy Savoca: True love stories

As a new generation discovers the iconic works of film and television that spotlighted the Italian–American experience in the 20th century– think The Sopranos, Moonstruck, Saturday Night Fever, The Godfather – a retrospective of a filmmaker who was integral in bringing a more intimate, female-centred take on these stories couldn’t be timelier.

Nancy Savoca was born in the Bronx to immigrant parents, an Argentinian mother and a Sicilian father, and raised ‘full, full, full’ Catholic by her own admission. Before she’d even finished film school at NYU, Savoca had already discovered a novel she was determined to adapt for the screen; one that spoke to her life and upbringing so deeply that she considered it biographical.

Ten years later, with two shorts and two features already under her belt, that determination resulted in a film widely regarded as one of the best of the year. In his four-star review, Roger Ebert praised Household saints for being ‘closer to the literal truth of those days than many non-Catholics will believe’. Despite being embraced by critics, the film fell through the cracks in the transition from VHS to DVD and was seemingly lost until a beautiful new restoration through Kino Lorber and Milestone Films, which will make its Australian premiere at the Art Gallery of New South Wales as part of the 71st Sydney Film Festival.

Also screening in this program are more stories of love and heartbreak that confirm Savoca’s auteur bona fides, including her 1989 Sundance winner True love and the newly restored, award-winning ’80s short Renata (screening at the Art Gallery, as well as at Dendy Newtown on 22 June 2024).

In addition, 1991’s much-loved Dogfight starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor, as well as her short film Bad timing, screen at Dendy Newtown on 13 and 23 June 2024.