Discover Movies

A short film by Filippo Ticozzi.

The film richly illustrates the history of one of the most famous and lavish Italian pleasure villas, located in the town of Lainate in Lombardy, not far from Milan. Using onsite documentation, costumed reenactments, interviews with prominent curators and historians, architectural models, and computer graphics, Villa Visconti Borromeo Litta portrays centuries of Italian art and architectural history in terms of stylistic expression. The film also explores the social, familial, and political milieux—not least of which is the chronicle of Pirro I Visconti Borromeo, count of Brebbia, the creator of this place of art and delights, a romantic, a patron, and a sophisticated man of culture in Milan during the late sixteenth century. The villa’s wonders are many—its famous Nymphaeum, greenhouses, palaces, sculptures, frescoes, fountains, and water features among them.

“Impressio in-urbe” goes through the textures of the urban space: the materiality of architectures, corners and prospectives, the drawings of pavings, the squares, the bricks; it’s a detailed decomposition of the city’s “cloak” from which the broken matter emerges, seemingly immovable but in a continuous connection, in the centuries, inhabited by its moltitude.”Impressio” is the print, the mark which all things and every gesture leave of itself, the “identikit” (and vivisection) of the city’s space and time, which gives back to us its view.

A reflection on the material, on the filmic support. Strips of figures wander, fluxuate in the whirling kinetic rhythms imposed on them. These faces, these dispersed shattered bodies result from contacts (this is where they "touch") made by old photographic plates and anonymous fragments of film; everything is set onto and into a spiral.

The staging of the eternal fight between man and the time. Man desires immortality, but his earthly body is destined to die, so he watches unarmed, just as a spectator, to the flow of his life events while the time is running out. Finally he will understand that only through the memory and the sign he can cherish a desire for immortality. The Time will end for everybody, but only those who will be able to leave a sign, will live forever.

Sherif is a young man from Senegal who was working in Libya in 2011 until he was forced to flee. French and American bomb attacks caused death and destruction and the only way to escape the war was the sea. Nick is an American documentarian and actor, who returns to his hometown, in Calabria, Italy. On his doorstep he meets Sherif, a young Senegalese man.

A documentary about a Danish-Nigerian family torn apart by geography, who are today trying to both comprehend and explain the choices they made that have led them to this point. When the filmmaker Jide, for the first time in five years, visits his father’s poultry farm, we see through his camera the unfolding of a story about family, love, and legacy. It is a quiet and stunning portrait of a broken family trying to heal, one in which the drama occurs in their mutual understanding, and never takes up more space than the impressions that meet Jide’s camera.

The great violinist Salvatore Accardo with the Orchestra da Camera Italiana in a recital featuring Five Pieces by Fritz Kreisler, the pieces Milonga del Angel and Verano Porteño by Astor Piazzolla, and the Serenade in C Major Op. 48 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Ekhlas Alhlwani was forced to flee Syria with her three children and now lives in Zaatari, a refugee camp in the Jordanian desert. Rizzi spent seven weeks observing her and other women's daily life, which is devoid of any prospects. He shows how Alhlwani makes every effort to establish some kind of normality for her family despite the difficult camp conditions. The film vividlyconveys the cruelty of war, and especially the state o funcertainty and rootlessness to which refugees are exposed. The film is the first part of a trilogy that focuses on the emergence of a new civil consciousness in Malaysia, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Syria, as well as the social implications of the end of post-colonialism in these countries.

Documentary on Elio Petri's film.

For centuries, every year on September 8 myriad swarms of winged ants have been arriving on the Mount of Ants. Similar to clouds obfuscating the sky, these small insects mate in a wonderful flight followed by the death of all the males, which fall exhausted onto the yard of the church rising on the mountain top, once called "Santa Maria Formicarum". The mating flight blazes out like an ecstatic apparition before the eyes of the curious, of tourists and the faithful, who arrive here every year to admire and to celebrate this feast dedicated to the "Virgin of the Mount of Ants". This singular event is the starting point for reflection within the film, which asks questions about the small insects’ nature and that of human beings. Great writers like Nobel Prize-winner Maurice Maeterlinck and entomologist Carlo Emery have studied them a lot: their words echo out again, nowadays, in the voices of witnesses in the film.

July 1944. San Miniato, Italy, is occupied by the Nazis. Paolino, the local tailor, receives a visit of the SS officer Rudolf Schmidt, who commissioned him a suit. One day, Lucia enters his shop. She is as friend of Paolino and a Partisan courier. She and Mauro, a friend of Paolino and the Partisan leader, will get married and she wants a new suit for Mauro. Lucia is captured and killed by Rudolf Schmidt. Now, it is up to Paolino, the tailor of the Nazis, to make an important choice...

Broken secrets, violated privacies, mirages of a redemption, a ruthless hand, the sudden rain: small abrupt events generate the turning point. One day, unexpected, life goes haywire and starts running elsewhere.

Short film by Ignazio Fabio Mazzola.

A young woman investigates an island’s geologic specificity, discovering hidden strata where history and memory meet barely submerged narratives of displacement and imaginaries of possible futures.

A train, a trip, a destination. Two strangers start to look each other while travelling in a couch of a train. Cold, pain, farewell. Arrived at the destination one of them is chosen to be a labourer of the Death in a Nazi concentration camp, a Sonderkommando.

The award-winning documentary I Had a Dream by Claudia Tosi follows two female politicians, centre-leftist MP Manuela Ghizzoni of the Democratic Party and City Council member Daniela de Pietri, as they persistenly strive to change things.

Two stories that repeat themselves: two boxers struggling to survive inside and outside of the ring. Toscano, a young Sicilian, is fighting against his past. Barca, an African immigrant, is fighting for his future. When the tide changes, they have to fight for the present, as they battle against the realities of life in Sicily. The film weaves the sights, sounds and emotions of a gritty boxing tale within the context of broken relationships, hardships, and the cycles of Mediterranean history.

One promise is one promise.

Three years of filming across Italy, from Mont Blanc to the island of Lampedusa, have resulted in this short film. The aim of this universal event is, first and foremost, to commit wealthy nations to guaranteeing food, water, and dignity to every human being according to a principle of justice that governs coexistence among the peoples of the Earth. Similarly, and just as with food, the peoples who have won the privilege of freedom through the sacrifice of their martyrs should be an example of democracy and civil coexistence.

Early morning. Two bisexual couples are resting after a night of passion.

The Skratch Fab presents It is not just a game, directed by Guglielmo Lipari, a short hit with the mockumentary style full of twists.

Behind the scenes documentary on the making of A Ciambra.

Francesca, a freelance gym teacher, lives alone with her three sons in Sardinia. She's a woman, a mother, a worker who struggles every day to survive. And she's my aunt. The economical crisis goes on, and her efforts now don't seem to be enough to maintain the life status that she desires for her and her children. That's how she decides to take a chance and enter in a TV quiz show... How her dreams to change her life situation manage to coexist with her everyday struggles?

Late at night, pitch black, a car approaches with the lights on. A man walks toward the shore, looking for something. A bunch of illegal immigrants from northern Africa are hiding in the bushes. The man works for the local mobster exploiting the immigrants. They will work at a local mine as modern slaves. Among them is somebody who is not supposed to be there. Sometimes inner conflicts come to the surface. This is the moment to take a look where nobody does, where modern hypocrisy turns other humans into misfits, and not only people from the third world.

Two men meet each other in an isolated house to engage in a ritual where passion and death combine in a common attempt of attaining the extreme form of pleasure.

MURMURATIONS (ROME) is a video that comments on history's ghostly spectre in the everyday. The video employs footage shot at two sites in Rome, Italy: MURMURATIONS (ROME) documents the act of walking through these historical sites as a means of critically reanimating their political and ideological significance today. Additionally, documentation of the intricately morphing formation of starlings in flight—called murmurations— that descend upon Rome in the evening, is presented along with excerpts from a poem by Pier Paolo Pasolini, 'Le Cenere di Gramsci' (1954). ​Commissioned by CIRCUIT - Artist Film & Video Aotearoa New Zealand with the assistance of Creative New Zealand for the Thick Cinema project curated by Mercedes Vicente

Alfio Antico, a Sicilian musician, lives deeply attached to his land, to its traditions and to its painful and cruel rituals. The images of the earth, the wind and of dreams blend with a repetitive and tantric music that echoes the voice of the Sicilian street vendors.

High school clashes in the corridors are quite common. But in this school not far from Rome they extend outside the school following the scooter cruises. A tough guys group picks two boys' friendship as their new target - but everyone is overcome by fear and anxiety.

On a fall afternoon, Viola, a cheerful 6 year old girl, is at the park with her father. She has just lost her baby teeth but she already has her own vision of the world, a vision that is opposite to her father's, which embodies the contradictions of a society that justifies violence and demonizes homosexual love.

Roberta and Alessandro fell in love when they met in Corsica eight years ago. Since his adolescence Alessandro, a successful Venetian lawyer, had been tormented by a secret he has never revealed to anyone: the desire to become a woman. A desire that later grew to be a necessity for him. After they got married in December 2012, Alessandro decided to fly to San Francisco to undergo sex reassignment surgery. A difficult, long thought over decision which brought many consequences but, thanks to unconditional support from Roberta, these never undermined their love. An extremely important step, leaving behind the past in which Alessandro used to hide his true inclinations, and towards a new and bright future. This story about three crucial years in their relationship is told by directors Annamaria Gallone and Gloria Aura Bartolini through interviews, confessions and film footage.

A film made for LIVE, a workshop held by Bianco-Valente. Curated by Giusy Caroppo as a part of the InContemporanea exhibition.

Homosexuality has been condemned for centuries. But why? What do some people find offensive about the homosexual behavior? Meet a man who was convicted for the murder of an homosexual, along with the president of 'Jurists for life', the spokesperson of 'la Manif pour Tous' as well as the national representative of 'Standing Sentinels' and the spokesperson of 'Forza Nuova'.

After the first Four Giants in Milan (Leonardo, Napoleone, Hemingway and Stendhal), Farinotti tells the story of other "giants" who lived in Milan and played important role in the city's history, from the 5th century b.c. to the second war of independence which let Milan freed from Austrians.

Scientists vanishing and mutating to Zombies. A door to another dimension. A blind woman who keeps a secret. Mysterious surreal connections that prepare an Inferno for the city of gondolas. Third part of the ANIMA PERSA trilogy (Malacreanza - Il Mondo Perduto - Inferno Veneziano).

A journey from darkness to light. Alma reveals the metamorphosis of a man faced with his fears and sudden revelations. The search for his true essence pushes him towards changing conditions, just like the substance of which he himself is made.

Melissa (18) and Pietro(22) are brothers. After their father left the family they lived years of depression with a mother who wasn't always capable to follow them. This event caused in both of them a lot of problems, that somehow the are trying to resolve and grow up...In two different ways.

17 creepy stories before midnight.