Back In 1929, the University of Western Australia (UWA) became the first Australian university to appoint a professor of Italian, Francesco Vanzetti. Vanzetti, from Venice, was a true pioneer for the Italian language in Western Australia. When he reached retirement age, he lobbied for the University to create a full Italian department and refused to retire until his dream was realised. 20 years later, the University finally fulfilled his wishes and he retired at the age of 85.

We asked a group of Italian kids living in Australia if there was anything they wanted to know, and our Consulate General of Italy in Melbourne, Pierluigi Trombetta, was only too happy to answer their questions.

Miriam La Rosa is a Melbourne University-based curator from Sicily currently involved in the cross-cultural and cross-regional artistic project “Preservation is an act of political warfare. An exchange artist residency between Sicily and Australia”. The Italian promotional, cultural organisation CO.AS.IT is hosting a documentary screening and exhibition opening on 12th November and running until the beginning of 2020. (Photo - from left to right - Kade McDonald, Jesse Gibbs, Miriam La Rosa, Regina Pilawuk Wilson, and Xena Wilson. Mondello beach, Palermo, Sicily. 28 July 2019. Photograph: Timothy Hillier)

The Jewish International Film Festival is in full swing and it is a fascinating time of the year for avid cinemagoers looking for films outside the mainstream, that challenge and engage all at once. Screening at a number of cinemas nationwide, the festival attracts a culturally and ethnically diverse audience and 60 films from 23 countries are classified according to 3 main categories (Feature, Series, and Documentary), thus appealing to a wide range of tastes. In Melbourne (as in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra) the festival this year runs from 23 October to 21 November and is hosted by the Classic Cinemas Elsternwick, the Lido Cinemas Hawthorn, and the Cameo Cinemas in Belgrave.

For the first time in Melbourne, Mimmo Cavallaro brings us his dynamic and passionate modern mix of traditional Calabrian/Italian folk music in this one night only event! The folk music master will perform in Adelaide,Shepparton, Melbourne, Sydney and Wollongong

Alfredo Malabello, many thanks for taking time out to see me. You are a fascinating and impressive man with many strings to your bow and balls in the air. You have built a name for yourself as a musician/pianist, singer and all-round entertainer ̶ with a “voice of romance”. An icon in the Australian music industry, you feature heavily in the media and have been called “Australia’s very own Italian son of song”

Anthony Montesano, Melbourne-based couturier, has fascinated me for years. His work is iconic and is as easily recognisable as his laugh and hilarious social commentary. He is one of a kind, and today he’s ours to devour. (Photos Rachael Ogle)

Stephen Cuttriss has been praised by the media as one of “Australia’s heavyweight tango musicians” and a bandoneon player who “ignites the sonic soundscapes of Argentina on this unique instrument. He explores the roots of both urban tango and rich rural folk traditions" - Photo Stephen Cuttriss (with kind permission by Stephen Cuttriss)

Running for its 48th consecutive year, the Giffoni Film Festival organised in the small town of Giffoni Valle Piana, near Salerno in Campania, attracts all the more people during this artistically vibrant time of the year. An annual event that brings together people of all ages, the festival specifically focusses on and appeals to children and families, and as part of this it also allows children to get hands-on experience in regard to the many ins and outs of the fascinating medium of filmmaking. (Photo Giffoni Experience: Premio alla carriera a Claudio Gubitosi, 13 September 2013)

Perhaps the most famous poem in the Italian language is a brief idyll composed of fifteen loose hendecasyllables in which the poet, about to climb a hill, sees a hedge that blocks his view. His mind begins to wander, and he fantisises about unknown and endless places, where peace and tranquility reign. The hedge blocking his view becomes a springboard to the inner self.

Baldessin/Whiteley: Parallel Visions is an exhibition on display at the NGV Australia until January 28th 2019. The retrospective proposes two expressionist artists who made a name for themselves in Australia and overseas during the ‘60s and ‘70s.

The first time he landed in Rome, he burst into tears of emotion. He was a recently graduated 23-year old. He’d bought his ticket to Italy with his meagre savings and he didn’t even know why he was going, but he went and fell in love. A love that is renewed each time he goes back, as if he had lived there in a previous life and is simply going home.

The mark left by the artists that have spent time at John and Sunday Reed’s homestead is still evident today not only through the exhibitions, it now houses as the Heide Musuem of Modern Art, but also from the traces that they have left in the building itself.

If you have a flair for art, you’ll be familiar with the National Gallery of Victoria, the Ian Potter Centre and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), but you may not have heard of Heide, the museum of Modern Art, Hidden in the hills of Bulleen, this museum will immerse you in contemporary Australian art. I have overlooked this jewel for too long. and now it’s time to see what I’ve been missing out on!

The Corsini family have been one of the most influential and notable Florentine families for the last seven centuries. Like the Borgias and the Medicis, in Florence, the Corsini family name is one that is synonymous with prestige, wealth and nobility.

To know Stefano Costabile’s work is to know a mastermind in action. Likened to the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s imaginative world of Alice in Wonderland, Stefano is indeed mad about hats. With a career spanning decades, and with work gracing various industries and fields, Stefano has proven that he has what it takes to lead the millinery industry and set a new standard in functional Italian fashion. As it goes, there is certainly more to hats than meets the eye: medium, design, artisan technique and styling.

Vittorio Sgarbi is a famous Italian art critic and historian. He is a most prolific author and some of his books, though quite expensive, have become best-sellers. Sgarbi is a media personality, and has made a name for himself with his boisterous invectives at people who in his view are incompetent or inept in their role as public figures.

Pizza for us Italians is more than an appetising dish. It’s a magnet for getting together and spending good time with family and friends. It’s our gastronomical mandala, symbolising our gregarious spirit. Over a pizza we laugh, we joke, and most of all, we talk.

James Liotta is a young Australian-Italian actor, performer and comedian that had drawn from his Italian heritage the tools of his trade. He had his first experience on stage when he was 8 years old taking part in one of his father’s community theatre productions and grew up refining his acting skills, however his professional career as a comedian started as a result of a friend’s suggestion.