Acclaimed Italo-Australian screenwriter and director Jan Sardi joins the Choc-tops and Cassata team to reflect on how Melbourne’s Italian social and cultural landscape has shaped his work in cinema.

In this series, Choc-tops and Cassata, part of The Secret Life of Language, hosts Elisabetta Ferrari (Italian Studies Program) and Mark Nicholls (Screen and Cultural Studies) are joined by comedian, writer and producer Santo Cilauro to dig into the ways Italian language films shaped the cultural life of Melbourne.

Starting with his grandparents’ migration from the island of Elba and experiences on the Queensland canefields, Jan takes us to glamorous floorshows and Hollywood filmstars at Mario’s restaurant in Melbourne, where his father worked. He revisits his childhood obsession with Westerns screened at the Adelphi (now the San Remo Ballroom) and the discovery of Italian stars like Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. Screenwriter of movies such as Moving Out and Oscar nominated Shine, he also talks about his directorial debut in Love's Brother, his time as a teacher and how one of his high school students, Vince Colosimo, came to be cast in Moving Out.

Choc-tops and Cassata is a mini-series of The Secret Life of Language, a podcast from the University of Melbourne’s School of Languages and Linguistics. The series was produced and edited by Elisabetta Ferrari, Alice Garner and Gavin Nebauer. Recorded and mixed by Gavin Nebauer at the Horwood Recording Studio, the University of Melbourne.

Choc-tops and Cassata is made with support from ACIS (Australasian Centre for Italian Studies)

If you have any stories or info about the Melbourne cinema scene as discussed in the podcast, please feel free to contact us at italian.cinemas.project@gmail.com

The Secret Life of Language is licensed under Creative Commons.