Californie is screening for $15/$7 reduced (suggested donation at the door) on 11/19 at 4:30pm .

This Fall, N.I.C.E. returns in-person after two years online, celebrating its 32nd edition in the United States dedicated to Italian cinema and meeting with directors and critics. 

Alessandro Cassigoli, Casey Kauffman, 2021, 78 min., Italy

The film follows the life path of Jamila, a young girl of Moroccan origins who lives together with her family in the southern Italian town of Torre Annunziata. The directors  ob-serve her radical body mutation as well as the change in her desires and objectives. Shot in five years-span, Californie is the poetic and engaging representation of all the many decisions, apparently irrelevant, that determine the future of a person, always in between succeeding and succumbing to difficulties. 

Recorded video introduction by filmmakers Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman

About the Directors:
Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman started working together in 2015. Their first film, the documentary The Things We Keep (France, 2017) premiered at Italy's Biografilm Festival in 2018, where it won the Audience Award in the international competition. Their second, Butterfly (Italy, 2018), was selected for Alice nella Città and released in Italy in April 2019. It was part of N.I.C.E. USA and Russia selection in 2020. It made the rounds of the international festivals and racked up twelve prizes, including Italy's Globo d'oro for Best Documentary Film. Prior to their collaboration Cassigoli was based in Berlin and directed six primetime documentaries for ARTE, while Kauffman was employed in the Middle East as a reporter for Al Jazeera.