Cinema Italiano Festival launches tonight at Lumière Cinemas and runs until November 18 with 18 amazing films made with all the mastery and character you'd expect of Italian cinema. Here is festival director Paolo Rotondo's pick of five must-see flicks.

1 - Amazing Leonardo / Io, Leonardo

It's 500 years since the death of one of Italy's most important sons – Leonardo da Vinci. This film brings beautiful storytelling and imagery to the retelling of the master's life. The creative re-enactments make it accessible, particularly the Sistine Chapel scene, where da Vinci is depicted as a sort of film director, directing his models like actors and in the process voicing his thoughts and motivations.

2 - Loro

I've picked two films by the same director – Paolo Sorrentino – to highlight. A lot of people say this guy is the heir to legendary Italian director Federico Fellini. With this film, we're getting into some political stuff, and it's very 2020. Italy had a Prime Minister called Silvio Berlusconi who was in power for a total of 24 years. He was a populist befor Trump and before Winston Peters (well, maybe not before Peters). He's most well known overseas for his orgiastic 'bunga bunga' parties. He thought he was a Roman emperor, and he was dodgy as hell. I look at Berlusconi as a dinoasur – a man the world definitely needs to get rid of. The filmmaking is unbelievable. It's Italian-style. You know, in America they get into prosthetics and everything but the actor who plays Berlusconi looks nothing like him. But his interpretation is flawless – the walk, the attitude, everything.

3 - The Great Beauty / La Grande Bellezza

This is the second film in the festival made by Sorrentino. It won an Oscar six years ago for best foreign language film and it's great to look at it next to Loro and see the relationship between them, and the development of the medium.

4 - I'm Back / Sono Tornato

This is a brillliantly funny satire. You might know that before Hitler was a thing, fascism was invented in Italy and championed by Benito Mussolini. In this film you just get to laugh at him. The film takes the actor playing Mussolini and puts him in real-life contemporay Italian situations, so you get to see the real reactions and the attitudes that are present under the surface in society. It's funny, silly, and poking fun at today's autocrats of the world with the benefit of Italian insight after having been through all these same political eras in the past.

5 - AN ALMOST ORDINARY SUMMER / CROCE E DELIZIA

And to wind up with an outrageously funny comedy that doesn't have the heavy political element, we've got this beauty about two families who become a blended family. The difference here is that the two parents who get together are the two fathers, and their families didn't know they were in love. They all go on holiday together to a really scenic, coastal part of Italy, and a lot of situational comedy happens. It's really enjoyable and I've had a lot of people say they really related to the characters – they could be families from anywhere in the world.

Cinema Italiano Festival
Lumière Cinemas
Thursday 5 November – Wednesday 18 November
lumierecinemas.co.nz