"It’s not Christmas without a Cinepannetone movie"

- Anonymous

Forty years ago this Christmas, one of the lesser known Italian contributions to world culture was released on an unsuspecting public. It was 1983 and the movie “Vacanze di Natale” (Christmas Vacation) debuted in cinemas across Italy on the 22nd December. Directed by the brothers Carlo and Enrico Vanzina and produced by father and son Luigi and Aurelio De Laurentiis, it was a comedy set in the Italian ski resort of Cortina during the Christmas holiday period, and went on to launch the film genre that has since come to be known (initially derisively, now affectionately) as “Cinepanettone”- a neologism coined by the film critic Franco Montini which conflates the word cinema and panettone, the Italian cake widely enjoyed at Christmas. Seeing the newly released “cinepanettone” movie is now a yearly Christmas holiday tradition that to many Italians has become almost as emblematic of Christmas as panettone itself. Indeed, if Charles Dickens invented the modern idea of the Christmas holiday and Coca Cola invented the modern iconography of Santa Claus, then the Vanzina brothers created the Italian cinematic Christmas as we know it.

Cinepanettone was certainly not originally intended as high art, the inheritor of Luchino Visconti’s Neo Realism, the highly influential Italian film movement that had a profound influence on global cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. On the contrary, cinepanettone movies were intended for the mass-market, intentionally low-brow, slapstick Christmas comedy movies, filled with cheesy, crass – and often politically incorrect - jokes and childish innuendo. Think National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation or that popular series of British “Carry On” movies from the 1960s and you’ll get the idea. The irony is that Christian de Sica, one of stars of that original Vacanze di Natale cinepanettone movie, is also the son of Vittoria de Sica, one of the key directors in the Italian neo-realist movement, and himself a serious and well-loved actor. Another irony is that interestingly, and with the benefit of retrospect, Vacanze di Natale is considered itself a masterpiece of 80s neo-realism, perfectly capturing the golden age of the 80’s with all its selfishness, excess and changing social mores.

The typical cinepanettone is always set around the festive season and features famous mainstream Italian actors, usually playing a range of bungling, wealthy and presumptuous middle-class stereotypes in glamorous or exotic locations. The plot usually involves infidelity, mistaken identity, romance, secrets and misadventures, family relationships, out of control partying and merriment. Overall, the movies are intentionally light-hearted, a fun transition into the Christmas holidays.

That initial movie went on to seed a genre, and there are now over 30 cinepanettone, with titles such as Christmas in India, Christmas in South Africa, Christmas in Love, Christmas in Miami, Christmas in Beverley Hills - and even a Christmas in Mars. Common across many of them are two popular Italian actors – Christian de Sica and Massimo Baldi – who have been making and starring in these cinepanettone for nearly 40 years. They are the Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy of Italian Christmas cinema. Their predictable presence in many of the movies has been as comforting to audiences as a warm cup of cocoa. Indeed generations of families – grandparents, their children and grandchildren – sit together watching these well-known actors, giggling at the bad jokes, non-sequiturs and antics. Their familiarity is part of the common, shared experience between generations and almost as cheering as Christmas itself. To Australians there is also an antipodean connection, with the appearance of Aussie supermodel Megan Gale in Vacanze di Natale 2000. Perhaps not her finest moment on film, but certainly amongst her most memorable.

The idea for the original Vacanze di Natale in 1983 came on the back of another successful 80’s Italian film – also considered a masterpiece in its own way - that was also directed by the same Vanzina brothers, “Sapore di Mare” (translates to “Taste of the Sea”, but released in English as “Time for Living”). Also released in 1983, Sapore di Mare was a nostalgic, romantic comedy set in summer in the Italian beach resort of Forte dei Marmi, known as the “St Tropez of Italy” against the backdrop of the mid-1960, the time of Italy’s economic boom. The film is a wistful, yet cheeky homage to the annual holiday pilgrimage that many Italians make every year during Ferragosto, the mid-August holiday season where 90% of Italians have their holidays during the summer. Its success inspired father-son producers Luigi and Aurelio De Laurentiis to meet with the Vanzina brothers.

The group met in the restaurant and Roman institution “Il Moro” not far from the Trevi Fountain, a restaurant frequented by politicians, celebrities and entrepreneurs. Here the signori De Laurentiis suggested the idea of a movie similar to Sapore di Mare, but set around Christmas time and in a ski resort. Their minds quickly turned to Cortina, Italy’s most famous ski resort, and to another well-known (in Italy) light comedy Christmas movie from 1959 titled “Vacanze d'inverno” (Winter Holiday) starring Alberto Sordi and Christian de Sica's father, Vittoria de Sica. Inspired, they shook hands and signed an informal “contract” on the back of a napkin. It was shot in September 1983 in 3 weeks and released just a few months later. It was a decidedly low-budget movie (most Italian movies are, not benefitting from English language distribution) and it was also pre-CGI era, so producing a winter movie in early Autumn required low-tech ingenuity – foam and cotton wool to mimic snow for close up shots, white bedsheets spread on fields for long shots of the snowy terrain and ski pistes. It helped that it had a great 80’s soundtrack including Moonlight Shadow by Mike Oldfield. The fashion is also classic Cortina from that period, with fur coats and paninari-inspired looks throughout including classic mid-80’s Moncler and Timberlands.

It later emerged that the signori De Laurentiis were expecting a different, somewhat more tasteful movie than the one that was ultimately delivered. When they met in the mixing studio in Rome to review the final directors cut, Aurelio De Laurentiis fumed at the end, asking the Vanzinas “what kind of movie is this?”. The De Laurentiis didn’t even think it particularly funny, but the directors were convinced it would hit its mark. Now with over 75 official fan clubs around the world - and even a movie-location tour - the Vanzina’s were surely right about the movie. Enrico Vanzina in a later interview revealed that in the movie they attempted to hold up a mirror to an Italy that was in the throes of social change and upheaval. They caricatured the new entrepreneurial rich of Milan, the old-money of Bologna, the Roman middle-class bourgeoise, as well as the Roman working class. It narrated a place that was profoundly changing with the wave of new-rich, their vulgarities and arrogance. This was neo-realism 80’s style.

When the film debuted, the crowds loved it, but the critics panned it, seeing in the cinepanettone evidence of moral decay, a symptom of the emerging right-wing Berlusconian politics of the day. In fact, one critic Curzion Maltese, even went as far as to say that the cinepanettone was to the era of Burlesconi what the ‘telefoni bianchi’ (white telephone) comedy movies were to the fascists (Italian comedies made in the 30’s and 40’s during the fascist era, named for the white telephones used in some scenes). This reaction highlights something particular about Italian society, which is the deep scepticism of mass popular culture. Indeed in public, many would rarely admit to watching (let alone enjoying) a cinepanettone, even if they did so in the privacy of their own homes. The public intellectual and writer Francesco Piccolo, himself no fan of cinepannetone, went to the debut of one (he claims as an anthropological exercise). He reported to his amazement there were people of all types entering the theatre, from children to grandparents, groups of couples of all ages, with women in their 50’s wearing fur coats, groups of adolescents, large families with and without grandparents. Many lined up for that “one time a year” trip to the movie theatre to see the latest instalment.

It is this which perhaps best explains the role the cinepanettone movies play in Italian life and their enduring success at the box office during Christmas: watching a cinepanettone is a social ritual that binds people of all social strata. It is an opportunity to come together, to take life a little less seriously and laugh in anticipation of the holiday season. So this year when the newest instalment of cinepanettone hits the cinemas - or streaming channels - in Italy, the Italian public will all be there. And like panettone itself, it will probably leave us all wanting more.