Italian arts come to L.A.

The Los Angeles Italia festival, which runs from Sunday to Saturday, is intended to showcase international culture. So it’s only fitting that the festival’s opening film, “Fever,” stars an English actress, was directed by a half-Italian filmmaker, adapted by an American playwright and largely was shot in Croatia.

The festival is a local offshoot of what has been two Italian showcases of American movies. But rather than take American movies to the islands of Capri and Ischia, festival founder Pascal Vicedomini is now bringing what he thinks are some of the best examples of the Italian arts to Hollywood.

The festival, with movies showing at Mann’s Chinese 6 in Hollywood, will include showings of several landmark films with Italian ancestry, including Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Cinema Paradiso” (10 a.m. Sunday), Mario Monicelli’s “Big Deal on Madonna Street” (3 p.m. Sunday) and Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” (10 a.m. Feb. 24).

For complete festival information, go to www.losangelesitalia.com.