It’s official, otsoNY has reached another milestone and the 1200th film to be posted online is the Italian comedy “Natale a New York” translated “Christmas in New York”.

Though there were many films that came close including Tom Hanks’ “Sully” and Emily Blunt’s “The Girl on the Train”, it was decided that a foreign film be chosen this time. The Italian comedy and was directed by Neri Parenti and shot on location in 2006. It starred a host of Italian actors including Christian De Sica, Massimo Ghini and model-turned-actress Elisabetta Canalis, who for 2 years dated American actor George Clooney.

The plot of the film centres on three groups of characters who depart from Italy to spend the Christmas season in New York City. Christian De Sica plays Camillo, a penniless pianist who gains fortune by marrying a rich woman. Although, he is happy living in the comfort with a dependent daughter Carlotta, played by Elisabetta Canalis, he is still in love with Barbara, a Roman working with whom he had an affair. Barbara played by Sabrina Ferilli, however, is now married to Claudio, but this is secretly in love with the daughter of Camillo.Dr. Severino Benci sends his assistant Filippo to New York with a mandate to deliver a gift to his son Francesco, who studies in the most important university in the city. But Francesco is a pleasure-loving slacker who opens an illegal trade of joints. Filippo covers both he and his friend Paolo, and he's having fun with them, while falls in love with a beautiful pompom girl.

The film borders on slapstick 1980s style of humour in a world far removed from it, though with very few foreign filmmakers shooting projects in New York City, the choice was extremely limited.

Elisabetta Canalis

Elisabetta Canalis was a dancer on the Canale 5 TV show Striscia la Notizia from 1999 to 2002, and had minor roles in the films “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo” and “Virgin Territory”, a comedy produced by Roberto Cavalli. In 2005, she replaced a busy Michelle Hunziker in “Love Bugs 2”, the second season of the sit-com “Love Bugs”. In 2007, she co-hosted the annual Italian music festival, “Festivalbar” but the TV program closed.

In 2009, she replaced a pregnant Elena Santarelli on the Italian version of “Total Request Live”, on MTV Italia. In 2010 she played a recurring character in season 3 of the TNT series “Leverage”. In February 2011, she co-hosted the most important Italian song contest, Sanremo Music Festival with Gianni Morandi and Belen Rodriguez. She interviewed in the Festival Robert De Niro . Canalis appeared on the 13th season of “Dancing with the Stars” and was paired with Valentin Chmerkovskiy and was the second to be eliminated on 27 September 2011.

Elisabetta Canalis was featured in the 2003 Max nude calendar, and has been a spokeswoman and runway model from 2006 to 2009 for the fashion brand "Hollywood Milano", a Milan-based disco club. She promoted in a spot recorded in New York the new city limousine Musa "5th Avenue". In June 2011 she appeared in a photoshoot of the Spanish version of Vogue, and in September 2011 in the Arabian version of Harper's Bazaar. That same year, she modelled for Roberto Cavalli.

More recently, Canalis appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair for the third time on Vanity Fair, and was voted in 2010 as the 7th most beautiful woman for Maxim and in top 50 for DT Spain magazine. Thanks to actor George Clooney, she gained a contract as spokesmodel for Pantene, and in June 2012 became the covergirl Sportweek Dreams, a special edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport.