'Lunch' is the toast of Italy box office

Low-budget feature impressing audiences ROME -- A film about a bevy of lively ladies over 80 being catered to by a boyish middle-aged boozer is doing gangbuster biz at the Italo box office and becoming an international cause celebre. Roman multihyphenate Gianni Di Gregorio, 59, was fretting over whether "Mid-August Lunch," his first feature, would make the cut for the Venice Critics Week. Then last month Di Gregorio took the Lion of the Future for best first work at the Venice fest, marking the first time the nod went to someone his age. A simple tale, gentle in tone but biting enough for belly laughs, "Lunch," which cost $600,000 to make, and stars mostly nonpros, has since gone on to gross more than $2 million locally so far via Domenico Procacci's Fandango. Di Gregorio stars as Gianni the son of Valeria, played by... [read full story]