Fact-based Mafia drama, tumultuous love affairs, breezy comedy, touching stories of personal triumph and wartime conflict are just part of the lineup in the third annual film festival from the Italian Cultural Center of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The series, running Friday through Sunday, is an eight-film tour of Italy, from a school for blind students in Genoa to roiling political corruption in Campania, to young romance in Lombardia.

"Rosso Come il Cielo" ("Red Like the Sky") tells the real-life story of Mirco Mencacci, who was sent to a school for the handicapped after an accident blinded him as a child. Separated from his parents, the 10-year-old began using a reel-to-reel tape recorder to create sonic fairy tales. The religious authorities running the school discouraged his flights of fantasy, but the feisty boy persisted, ultimately recruiting the entire school in staging a year-end show with narration and sound effects for an audience of blindfolded, awestruck adults. Mirco (appealingly played by Luca Capriotti) is now one of Italian cinema's most respected sound editors. The feature's superb sound package, created by Mencacci himself, adds much to the film's emotional appeal. (7 p.m. Fri.)

Relationships romantic and economic are precarious in the youth-oriented charmer "Generazione Mille Euro" ("1,000 Euro Generation"). Alessandro Tiberi is endearing as Matteo, an underemployed 30-year-old Milan mathematician. With shaky job prospects, a dumpy flat, a girlfriend who's fed up and a roommate umbilically connected to his PlayStation, Matteo stands for a European generation trying to find its feet amid the economic slump. A lightweight escapist treat. (2:30 p.m. Sun.)

"Fortapasc" is Neapolitan slang for Fort Apache, the nickname of a war zone where in the 1980s local crime families fought bloody turf battles. Marco Risi's fact-based thriller follows reporter Giancarlo Siani (appealingly played by Libero De Rienzo) as he uncovers a thicket of corruption linking local law enforcement, industry and government. The film opens with his 1985 assassination, then details his fearless -- perhaps foolhardy -- path to martyrdom. The film offers moments of bizarre humor: One hitman kills his prey with the severed head of a swordfish! (5 p.m. Sun.)

All films are in subtitled Italian, and are screened free at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, 2501 Stevens Av. S., Mpls., 612-298-2223 or www.theitalianculturalcenter.org.

Colin Covert • 612-673-7186