Cabrini

3/17/2024

Cristiana Dell'Anna delivers strongly here as the eponymous nun determined to set up a network of orphanages in China to help the sick and impoverished children there. Her persistent hassling of the Vatican for permission - and funds - has finally wound them up to the point where she is invited to Rome to be finally told no. Even there, though, she's sticking to her guns and after a persuasive audience with Pope Leo XIII (Giancarlo Giannini) manages to get permission to prove her worth - only in New York! To it's slum and run-down Five Points district she is sent and what now begins is an adventure that tests her very mettle as the, at best indifferent, attitude of the Archbishop (David Morse) is more concerned with appeasing the Mayor (John Lithgow) than facilitating her wishes for profou

3/21/2024

A cracking movie! I can't say I was expecting much from <em>'Cabrini'</em>, given I hadn't heard anything about it online or in real life - no trailers or anything of ilk. I was also <em><a href="https://letterboxd.com/r96sk/list/watched-in-an-empty-cinema/" rel="nofollow">alone in the cinema</a></em>, which is pleasing personally but is possibly a bad sign for a movie. In actuality, though, it's a great production! Supremely acted, astutely paced, some awesome visuals and a strong score. The cinematography really is excellent, I lost count the amount of times I thought to myself "What a shot that is!". As for the acting, Cristiana Dell'Anna puts in a terrific lead performance - it's naturally, given I've only seen one or two Italian flicks, the first time I've seen her in anything,

3/31/2024

Providing care, comfort and compassion to the world’s downtrodden is undoubtedly a noble, if exhausting and often-frustrating, cause, especially when pleas for help go ignored or fall on deaf ears. Yet, every so often, someone comes along who tirelessly keeps on fighting for those less fortunate, as was the case with Italian immigrant Mother Francesca Cabrini (Cristiana Dell’Anna). Upon her arrival in New York in 1889, the diminutive but zealous nun from Lombardy set about her work to care for her fellow countrymen and women (especially orphaned and abandoned children) in desperate need of food, housing and medical care, the first charitable undertaking of what she envisioned becoming a worldwide network of such ventures. She successfully raised awareness of the plight of these emigrees by