By the Cross

Rome. The 1980s. After the magnum opus The Art of Joy she has been working on for a decade is rejected by the Italian publishing world, writer Goliarda Sapienza commits a desperate theft that costs her her reputation and social position. Incarcerated in Italy’s largest female prison, she finds herself living alongside thieves, junkies, sex workers and revolutionaries. After her release, she continues to meet with these women and over the course of a sweltering summer, a life-changing relationship flowers – a relationship that will reawaken her the desire to live and to write.

The story of the descent into madness of Mussolini's secret first wife, Ida Dasler, who was seduced by his passion and vigor but blind to the fascist dictator's many flaws.

Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.

The last years of Bettino Craxi, one of the most important and controversial italian leader of the 1980's.

The warmhearted story of Polish immigrant and mathematician Stan Ulam, who moved to the U.S. in the 1930s. Stan deals with the difficult losses of family and friends all while helping to create the hydrogen bomb and the first computer.

A story set in 19th century China and centered on the lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid cultural norms imposed on women.

In the years between WWI and the rise of Fascism, legendary thespian Eleonora Duse shocks everyone by getting back onstage at over 60 years of age. Struggling with the brutality of historical events unfolding and clinging to the possibility of utopia, she makes her art a revolutionary act, even at the cost of sacrificing health and affection—facing her final journey aware she could give up life itself, but not her own true nature.

Enrico Mattei helped change Italy’s future, first as freedom-fighter against the Nazis, then as an investor in methane gas through a public company, A.G.I.P., and ultimately as the head of ENI, a state body formed for the development of oil resources. On October 27, 1962, he died when his private airplane crashed during a flight to Milan. Officially, it is declared an accident, but many journalists explore other plausible reasons for Mattei's untimely death.

The 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists.

A Roman soldier becomes torn between his love for a Christian woman and his loyalty to Emperor Nero.