“Intimate, epochal, quietly unforgettable, The Best of Youth defies logic and expectation. Made for Italian television with no thought of export, it shouldn't have captivated the exclusive international film festival world, but it did. . . . Youth's story compellingly intertwines one family's personal narrative with nearly forty years of the defining events of recent Italian history, constructing a story line whose various threads play out masterfully from the mid-1960s to just about today. (The film screens in two three-hour segments, which can be viewed over one or two days.) . . . This is a kind of filmmaking we've almost forgotten exists: serious, adult storytelling on a grand scale that deals with intensely dramatic events unrolling like a carpet whose rich patterns are a source of continual delight. . . . Though the film's events are specifically Italian, the overarching turmoil and upheaval, and the sense of living in tumultuous times rife with social and political crisis, have parallels everywhere.”--Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Part 2 of The Best of Youth screens on Saturday, January 14; the film is presented in its entirety on Friday, January 20.