The Director of the Italian Cultural Institute

Silvio Marchetti

is pleased to invite you to 

the screening of  

"Portland 2 Portland -

A Political Train Journey Across America"

by Beppe Severgnini 

Sunday, November 4th

5pm

Chicago Cultural Center

Claudia Cassidy Theater

77 E Randolph St

Second Floor

Presented in collaboration with Cinema/Chicago.

The Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago and Beppe Severgnini will present, in collaboration with Cinema/Chicago, "Portland 2 Portland - A Political Train Journey Across America," a documentary directed by Andrea Salvadore (100 minutes).

What image do Europeans have of the United States of America and does it correspond to reality? What do Americans think of Europeans? How do people live along the coasts of the United States and in the great Midwest? What stories can they tell on the eve of the Presidential elections of 2012? Two journalist-travelers from Europe decided to cross the United States by train to find out.

In June of 2012 Beppe Severgnini, columnist for the Corriere della Sera and the Financial Times, as well as a best-selling author and the most widely read Italian author in the United States in the past 5 years, decided to travel this time from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A journey of more than 6000 kilometers crossing 18 states, from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon by train, the ideal means of transportation for meeting people, opinions, and landscapes. From this journey, which he took with colleague Karl Hoffman, the correspondent in Italy for the German broadcasting station ARD, Severgnini described his stops on Twitter, wrote about them on his blog, and spoke about them online on CorriereTv, as well as on the weekly Sette. He also took notes for a book that will be published.

Broadcast on the air in Italy on channel La7, "Portland 2 Portland - A Political Train Journey Across America," received raving reviews. Not only is it a log of this great journey with breathtaking images of America, from panoramas of Montana to the crossing of the Mississippi. There are also stops in major cities, such as Boston, Cleveland, Obama's Chicago, Milwaukee, and Seattle, adventures in small towns, such as Rugby, North Dakota and Malta, New York, the train and its passengers, and the extreme availability of the people encountered.  All of this is captured in this documentary.

In addition to Beppe Severgnini, the Director Andrea Salvadore, cameraman Gianni Scimone and producer Soledad Ugolinelli will be present at the screening.

Beppe Severgnini has been writing for the Corriere della Sera since 1995.  Since 2011, he has been a columnist for the Financial Times.  His most recent book is Mamma mia! Berlusconi's Italy Explained to Posterity and Friends Abroad (Rizzoli International, 2011).  Since 1998, Severgnini has been moderating 'Italians' (italians.corriere.it).  He is the most-followed Italian journalist on Twitt https://twitter.com/#!/beppesevergnini

Severgnini's twelve books, published in Italy by Rizzoli, are bestsellers. Un italiano in America became a National Bestseller in the US as Ciao, America! (Doubleday, 2002). La testa degli italiani was a New York Times Bestseller as La Bella Figura (Doubleday, 2006) and has been translated into fifteen languages.   He has written for The Sunday Times (1992-1993), The Economist (1993-2003) and The New York Times Syndicate (2007-2009).  In 2004, he was voted 'Euopean Journalist of the Year' in Brussels. Beppe is also a broadcaster and worked for Rai, Sky Italia, Channel 4 UK and the BBC.  He teaches at the Walter Tobagi School of Journalism at the University of Milan/IFG (2009-2012). He has been a research fellow/writer in residence at MIT/Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2009) and has taught at Middlebury College, VT (2006), and at the universities of Milan-Bocconi (2003 and 2006), Parma (1998) and Pavia (2002).

Reservations kindly suggested. 

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