SPETTACOLO REVIEWS (click on link):
"So poignant and is so intelligently told that it feels wrong, almost insulting, to call 'Spettacolo' charming, even if the movie is often delightful." - Manohla Dargis, New York Times
"Beautiful, tragic, but not with joy, 'Spettacolo' is a great film about the search for meaning. Did I dream it? I hope not." - Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Hammer to Nail
"Is this art or is this prophecy? Is there even a difference?" - Bilge Ebiri, Village Voice
“A glorious celebration of amateur theater” - Chris Wiegand, The Guardian
"Intensely curious and deceptively profound about the ways in which art both liberates and heals its creators, as well as traps and suffocates them" - Nick Schager, Daily Beast
"Moving, maddening, heroic, tragic, enlightening, revelatory, timely and steeped in time, sad yet bursting with mirth, 'Spettacolo' is without doubt, in many ways and on many levels, consummate spectacle." - Paul D'Agostino, Hyperallergic
"A beautiful, melancholic rumination on the struggle to preserve cultural tradition in the face of modern economic forces" - Liam Lacey, Original Cin
"The vision of a village so intimately bonded by its years of collective self-expression that it’s nearly a social ideal, a community that found the secret of togetherness." - Michael Atkinson, In These Times
"Breathtaking. A powerful testament to the ability of art to make sense of the world" - Stephen Saito, Moveable Fest
"Spectacular. The film resonates with profound themes that relate to us all - what sort of life is worth leading?" - Matt Carey, Nonfictionfilm.com
"Lovely and elegiac" - Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter
"Whimsical, eloquent, and bittersweet" - Peter Keough, Boston Globe
"Theater lovers and Italophiles alike should savor the documentary 'Spettacolo', an engaging and wistful look at a tiny Tuscan village" - Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times
"A cultural rumination more than a documentary... A grassroots illustration of the instinct to preserve cultural tradition." - Armond White, National Review
A+ - "Achingly beautiful" - Andrea Simakis, Cleveland Plain Dealer
4 1/2 stars - "Like the best art, it reminds us of ourselves" - Alex Dueben, Film Threat
"Truly poetic and delicately beautiful... They gave us 90 minutes of Italy's soul" - Francesca Bezzone, L'Italo-Americano
"It's hard to remember seeing a movie that made the act of creation seem like such a vital, desperate, necessary thing" - Dennis Cozzalio, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule
"A hymn to the creative process, but also a eulogy of sorts to the let’s-put-on-a-show spirit of pre-digital times" - Peter Howell, Toronto Star
SPETTACOLO ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS (click on link):
The Guardian - “Real-Life Dramas: 10 Great Documentaries About Theatre” by Chris Wiegand
Esquire - "The Best Documentaries of 2017" by Nick Schager
Vulture - "Emily Yoshida's 10 Best Movies of 2017" by Emily Yoshida
KCRW - "My Favorite Documentaries of 2017" by Matt Holzman
National Endowment for the Arts - "Art Works Podcast" by Josephine Reed
Los Angeles Times - "Indie Focus" by Mark Olsen
New York Times - "A Tuscan Village Bares Its Soul on Stage, Again and Again" by Gaia Piangiani
Film Comment - "Making It Real: Acting Out" by Eric Hynes
Frieze Magazine - "Period Drama" by Sierra Pettengill
Esquire - "15 Movies Worth the Haul to the Multiplex in September" by Nick Schager
Moveable Fest - "Jeff Malmberg on a Place Where All the World’s is a Stage in 'Spettacolo'" by Stephen Saito
PRI's the World - "Four International Documentaries to See Before the Summer Ends" by Sarah Birnbaum
Hammer to Nail - "A Conversation with Jeff Malmberg" by Christopher Llewellyn Reed
iNews UK - "The Italian Village that Plays Itself on Stage" by Finlay Greig
Screen Anarchy - "Jeff Malmberg talks 'Spettacolo'" by Zach Gayne
Tribeca Shortlist - "The 'Spettacolo' Director on his Hyper-Real Documentaries" by Heather Buckley
No Film School - "SXSW Stranger-Than-Fiction Documentarians on Why Art Makes Life Worth Living" by Emily Buder
Filmmaker Magazine - "5 Questions" by Scott Macauley
Women & Hollywood - "Meet Chris Shellen" by Laura Berger
Creative Capital Blog - "Jeff Malmberg and Chris Shellen Document the Real Power of Art" by Alex Teplitzky
Orginal Cin - "Jeff Malmberg on the Convergence of Trauma, Ritual and Art" by Liam Lacey
LA Review of Books - "In Defense of Small Audiences" by Sara Finnerty