To celebrate Disaronno’s 500-year anniversary*, we’ve teamed up with the iconic Italian liqueur makers to bring you an extra special cinematic treat: a two-month celebration of Italian screen style, inspired by the timeless spirit of la dolce vita.

Honouring half a millennium(!) of tradition and innovation, our ‘La Dolce Vita’ season – curated in partnership with Disaronno – kicks off in style this June with a deep dive into four of our favourite Italian films, spanning from the 1960s to today. Each one captures the essence of this age-old Italian philosophy, which is all about living well, appreciating beauty, and savouring every moment.

On the weekend of 4-5 July, we’re taking over London’s historic Regent Street Cinema for two nights of movies, cocktails, and a true taste of Italy. First up on Friday 4 July, we’re bringing Paolo Sorrentino’s dazzling 2013 film, The Great Beauty, back to the big screen, starring the one and only Toni Servillo in one of his best-loved roles.

Then, join us on Saturday 5 July for Michelangelo Antonioni’s atmospheric 1960 film, La Notte, featuring the impossibly glamorous ménage à trois of Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau and Monica Vitti. Each screening will be accompanied by an introduction from a member of the LWLies team, and an on-stage Q&A with an Italian film expert. We’ll also be serving up a delicious selection of Disaronno cocktails and Italian-themed goodies.

The legend of Disaronno can be traced back to the most famous creative period in Italian history: the Renaissance. In 1525, the artist Bernardino Luini, a student of Leonardo da Vinci, was commissioned to decorate the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Miracles in Saronno. For the Madonna in one of his paintings, ‘The Adoration of the Magi’, he chose a local innkeeper as his model. In appreciation, she presented him with a special gift: a flask filled with a fragrant, delicate, amber-coloured liqueur.

Since those humble origins, Disaronno has grown into the world’s favourite amaretto liqueur, famed for its unique aroma and sweet character – not to mention its iconic “square cap” bottle, created in the 1970s by a master Venetian glassmaker. Today, it embodies the elegance, refined taste, and unmistakable Italian style that has been immortalized on screen time and again by Italy’s most revered filmmakers.

If you attend one of our ‘La Dolce Vita’ screenings, you’ll not only have the chance to enjoy a signature Disaronno cocktail – aptly named Dolcevita and created by mixologist Patrick Pistolesi and his team at Drink Kong Bar in Rome – but you’ll also get your hands on a limited-edition zine filled with original content and gorgeous illustrations.

Stay tuned for more information about our ‘La Dolce Vita’ screening events, and head to disaronno.com to find out more about Disaronno’s 500-year anniversary celebrations.

*1525: The legend of Disaronno begins.

To stand out as a teenag­er is to make your­self a tar­get. The pack men­tal­i­ty that dom­i­nates most group set­tings for chil­dren ren­ders con­for­mi­ty a sur­vival imper­a­tive; Ben (Everett Blunck) under­stands this as a recent Boston trans­plant attend­ing the Tom Lern­er Water Polo Acad­e­my for the first time. He instant­ly notices that the ram­bunc­tious Jake (Kayo Mar­tin) is the ring­leader in their small all-male cohort, and the qui­et Eli (Ken­ny Ras­mussen) is the des­ig­nat­ed punch­ing bag. Owing to a skin con­di­tion, Jake and his cronies have start­ed a rumour that Eli has a con­ta­gious plague and con­tin­u­al­ly ostracise him, yet Eli, at least on the sur­face, appears strange­ly unboth­ered by their bul­ly­ing. Is his appar­ent placid­i­ty a symp­tom of his ill­ness? Jake and co cer­tain­ly believe so, while their well-mean­ing coach (a mas­ter­ful per­for­mance of inef­fec­tu­al­ness by Joel Edger­ton) remains rel­a­tive­ly igno­rant to the bar­bar­ic inter­per­son­al dynam­ics of his young wards.

Char­lie Polinger’s fea­ture debut deft­ly nav­i­gates the excru­ci­at­ing ten­sions of pre­teen­dom, but The Plague also cap­tures some­thing less overt­ly explored in cin­e­ma: the dif­fi­cul­ty of nav­i­gat­ing the world as a neu­ro­di­ver­gent indi­vid­ual. Eli’s exclu­sion from the group due to his per­ceived dif­fer­ence is the more obvi­ous part of this nar­ra­tive, but Jake’s frus­tra­tion at (and per­haps envy of) Eli’s refusal to con­form is key to the story’s fresh­ness. This illu­mi­nates a rarely dis­cussed part of the neu­ro­di­ver­gent expe­ri­ence, reveal­ing the com­plex inter­sec­tion of low­er and high­er sup­port needs, yet this speci­fici­ty is not exclu­so­ry; any­one who has expe­ri­enced or indeed observed the social peck­ing order of child­hood will like­ly recog­nise some ele­ment of The Plague, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the stel­lar per­for­mances Polinger has cap­tured from his young cast.

Tak­ing a few cues from Julia Ducournau’s Raw and Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade with a shade of Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Made­line in its fran­tic, breathy sound design, a palette dom­i­nat­ed by greens, blues, browns and greys cre­ates a claus­tro­pho­bic atmos­phere in which a pubes­cent blow-up nev­er feels very far away. It’s an impres­sive addi­tion to the com­ing-of-age canon, a mod­ern take on ​‘Lord of the Flies’ that doesn’t pull its punch­es. While the lack of adult over­sight for these fer­al pre-teens may raise an eye­brow, Polinger posi­tions the audi­ence square­ly at eye lev­el, and as a young­ster it real­ly can feel like you’re total­ly alone even sur­round­ed by sup­pos­ed­ly respon­si­ble adults. Yet Polinger also resists the temp­ta­tion to offer trite mes­sages of sup­port or overt self-accep­tance; the film’s con­clu­sion stings like the chlo­ri­nat­ed pool water the group spend hours splash­ing around in.

It’s an aus­pi­cious debut for Polinger, tech­ni­cal­ly ambi­tious and fierce­ly obser­vant of ado­les­cent anx­i­eties. Sink or swim, the scars of child­hood last much longer than any sum­mer school.

To keep cel­e­brat­ing the craft of film, we have to rely on the sup­port of our mem­bers. Join Club LWLies today and receive access to a host of benefits.