Inscriptions for Festival Italiano 2019 now open

Businesses and organisations interested in participating as exhibitors and/or sponsors of Festival Italiano 2019 (Sunday 20 October) and/or The Italian Festival Season in Auckland (September 17th - October 20) please contact

fede.evangelisti@gmail.com  by 31 May 2019 Stall holders: Please apply only if selling great Italian products. Food sellers will need to have a current food licence. We apologise in advance if due to space restrictions we

cannot accept all applicants.

Festival Italiano is a not for profit community event organised by the Società Dante Alighieri of Auckland. The Festival

showcases the best of Italy in New Zealand and is held under the patronage of the Italian Embassy. Festival Italiano is a registered Trade Mark (registration number 1040921).

Our May Newsletter is ready! Please click here to read.
Buona lettura !
The Dante Team

Introducing our newest Business Friend of Dante: Original Sicily

We have a new Business Friend of Dante: Original Sicily, offering a 10% discount to all Dante members! You may have meet Dario at Festival Italiano and at La Cigale market, and we are please to announce that he now also has a shop in Victoria Park Market (not far from the Dante Auckland School!) Go and say ciao and don't forget your Dante membership card to get your discount! 

Dario filling cannoli at the Festival Italiano

Original Sicily is an importer, distributor and retailer of fine foods from Italy. If you love Sicilian food here you will find a wide range of products typical of the Sicilian culinary tradition: sweet spreads, chocolates, pastries, cannoli, jams, pestos and pasta sauces, pistachios and other nuts, and more.

Each product is the result of traditional recipes and has a very definite geographical and cultural origin, which makes them all special and unique.

The company was born with the idea of sharing the Italian food culture and passion with New Zealand, to provide New Zealanders with the opportunity to explore new and exciting flavours and to create, with little effort, tasty recipes by using high quality products. 

In the food service sector, Original Sicily is specialised in supplying food businesses with ingredients and finished products, and supplies restaurants, patisseries, bakeries, cafes, catering companies and gelaterie with any price range requirement.

Original Sicily

Shop: 210 Victoria Street West, Victoria Park Market, shop 34

Market: La Cigale, 69 Saint Georges Bay, Parnell 

Website and online shop: www.originalsicily.co.nz

Contact person: Dario Motta

Email: info@originalsicily.co.nz

Phone: 0275121809

I bambini del Playgroup Italiano della Dante Auckland si preparano per Pasqua

Ieri era l'ultimo giorno di scuola prima delle vacanze di Pasqua (e di fine quadrimestre per tutti i bambini neozelandesi). Come al solito, giochi, canzoni e divertimento, e anche dei bellissimi bigliettini di Pasqua a forma di ometto per tutti! 

Ciao bambini, ci rivediamo a maggio, mentre per i più grandi ci vediamo durante le vacanze per lo School Holiday Programme!

Fun at Cinema Peroni

 Every year Peroni NZ hosts three nights of cinema all'aperto in Auckland, with an Italian movie, Italian food and, of course, birra Peroni Nastro Azzurro. This year the movie was Perfetti Sconosciuti, by Paolo Genovese. Grazie Peroni for the great evening!

April 2019 Newsletter

Our April Newsletter is ready! Please click here to read.
Buona lettura !

The Dante Team

School Holiday Programme for BAMBINI

A night at the Opera

 Beautiful concert yesterday evening with Lilia Carpinelli, Luca Manghi and Matteo Napoli who performed music for piano and flute, and arias from Italian composers like Vivaldi, Puccini e Rossini, and famous Italian songs from Sica, De Curtis and De Crescenzo, among others. Below the finale of Non ti scordar di me (Ernesto De Curtis). 

Grazie to the Italian Embassy in Wellington for organising this event!

Before the concert we observed a minute of silence to remember the victims of the horrific terrorist attack in Christchurch on Friday 15 March, and on the same evening, through a joint effort of the Dante Auckland and the ComItEs Wellington, we started a fundraising which we will keep open for the rest of this week at the Dante School.

Next musical appointment in Auckland: A night at the Opera

Italian-born New Zealand based artists, Lilia Carpinelli, Luca Manghi and Matteo Napoli will perform in public together for the first time, with a special programme for soprano, flute and piano.
Their recital will take you on a fascinating journey through Italian opera and traditional Italian songs.

Free entry

Grazie to the Italian Embassy in Wellington for organising this event!

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  Saturday, March 16, 2019 at 6 PM – 8 PM Next Week · 17–23°C Cloudy

• pin	St Matthew-in-the-City 187 Federal St (Corner of Wellesley & Hobson Streets), Auckland, New Zealand 1010 Show Map

Italian Film Evening - 18 Ius Soli, 22 March

18 Ius soli, il diritto di essere italiani - This 2010, multi-awarded, first Italian grass-roots documentary, written and directed by Fred Kuwornu, addresses the issue of the right of citizenship for the so-called second-generation immigrants, or for those born or raised in Italy by immigrant parents. The documentary sheds light on a reality unknown to many and which sometimes also reaches the paradoxical. In fact, it is the reality of hundreds of thousands of young people who were born and raised in Italy but who are forced to live with a residence permit and who are not guaranteed those rights that their Italian friends and peers enjoy. Not having citizenship in a state of law like Italy means to be denied many possibilities and to feel different from the people around you and with whom you grew up.

Author and director Fred Kuwornu was born in Bologna in 1971 from a Ghanaian father and a Bolognese mother. In 2008 he worked as a set assistant for Spike Lee in the film Miracle.

The following year Kuwornu produced and directed Inside Buffalo, the first documentary on the history of the Buffalo Soldiers, for which he received the appreciation of Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama (both appear in clips in the documentary), the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and of the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano.


Presented by Bernadette Luciano of Italian Department, University of Auckland. Friday 22 March, 6.30pm, Room 315, Building 206, Arts 1 Humanities In Italian with English subtitles. Free entry.