Discoveries from Italy World Cinema

Al Bano and Romina bring to the big screen the unhappy love between the composer Franz Schubert and the Hungarian Countess Anna Rostkov. Al Bano sings the immortal 'Ave Maria'.

Miguel foils a bank robbery and becomes a successful nightclub singer, but he doesn't know that his wife is being courted by an Italian fitness instructor.

Four comedic episodes follows different taxi drivers.

An inexperienced journalist tries to discover who murdered her friend.

In a girls' school, Maria, a student, is accused of having an affair with the young professor Marini. The main accuser is her classmate Anna, played by Alida Valli.

Five people who never met are convened by a notary for the reading of a will, and learn they are all brothers and sisters, children of the same father. They’ll share a large inheritance if they can deliver the ashes to their father’s favorite lake in Arizona.

Luigi was a kid growing up in a socio-economically deprived family environment. He began dealing with Angelo, an unsuspecting policeman, who seems to show a paternal attitude towards him, but he really has an ulterior motive turbid...he ends up abusing him. When Luigi tries to tell her mother what is happening, she does not want to believe him, his uncle gives helps. Luigi discovers his uncle experienced the same kind of abuse.

The Prince of Denmark, Hamlet, is little interested in family affairs and the fate of the kingdom, and not at all attracted by a doll-like Ophelia sucking his finger. Annoyed by his friend Horatio, who tells him of the apparition of his father's spectre that would like to drive him to revenge, and by Polonius, Ophelia's father, who psychoanalyses him by explaining the Oedipus complex, he imagines escaping to Paris with Kate, the leading actress of the company performing in Elsinore, to become a playwright.

A man who was injured in an accident has a visitor in his hospital. The visitor suggests a strange deal.

When Luca's girlfriend Mirna inexplicably dumps him, he finds solace in the arms of two fashion models, Stefania and Claudia. When Stefania mysteriously disappears after photographing herself having rough sex with Luca, Mirna begins sending him the negatives -but to what end? Meanwhile, Claudia searches for her missing friend...

Non-musical account of Puccini's opera: Tosca and Cavaradossi are in love, but the tyrant Scarpia desires Tosca and oppresses Cavaradossi who is fighting for freedom.

A young novitiate witnesses a murder. Later, she recognizes the culprit, who admits to the killing; the sister works to convince him to turn himself in to the police.

Three acrobats help to rid a small Californian border town of a local tyrant in the times of the Gold Rush.

The Stranger comes across some bad guys trying to kill a Japanese emissary for a very important scroll. Before the emissary dies, he asks The Stranger to return the scroll to Japan. Once there he finds himself stuck in the middle of two rival clans and decides to play them off one against each other to free the town.

Filmed in Gianni Versace's mansion in Miami where every object is a separate work of art, this stunning documentary attempts to bring the genius of the Italian fashion giant to life. Through archival material and the confessions of friends and former colleagues, a portrait of a Renaissance designer emerges, a man who never stopped being inspired to create a strictly personal universe of high aesthetics. Indeed, Versace was not only one of the greatest and most influential designers of his time. He was also on the sharp intersection between classic and modern, redefining the way we perceive fashion and clothing.

There's a frontier feud on the border of Mexico, where outlaw Hagen's brothers have been killed by Nevada Kid's family.

A romance between two temperamental singing stars. Highlights include a lengthy selection from Faust, with Gigli making a most impressive Mephistopheles. The plot takes a melodramatic turn towards the climax, with the lives of the characters mirrored in their on-stage behavior. Director Carmine Gallone was something of an expert in the field of filmed opera, as witness his Tosca, Rigoletto and Il Trovatore.

A man dressed in a long black cloak and provided with silver hair roams the streets of southern Italy sentencing the end of the world and prodding the word of God to all who cross his path. His presence attracts the attention of a local TV station, which, sniffing around, decides to run a special on this individual on New Year's Eve, the very moment when the man says life on the planet will end.

Vittorio De Sica, heir to a large sum of money and owner of a newspaper vending stall, makes enough money out of his business to take a vacation at a fashionable resort. He is given a cruise ticket by an aristocrat who is an old school friend, and is mistaken for the aristocrat when he uses a camera that has his friends name on it. Assia Noris plays a maid who falls in love with him because of who he is and not who others think he is. Happy ending comes when De Sica marries Noris, who is more real than the pampered society belles he has been partying with.

When his destituite widowed sister-in-law—whom he had never stopped harbouring feelings for—and her ne'er-do-well son come to live with him after World War II, a mentally-ill farmer who spends all his time destroying unexploded ordnance scattered across the countryside finds a new purpose in his lonely life.

During WW2 a platoon of marines fights the Japanese on a little island in the Pacific Ocean. On the island there is a hut where old Taikiki lives with his two daughters. The two opposing armies soon forget about war and concentrate on winning the girls' hearts.

Secret agent Perry Grant is called in to investigate a strange case which involves counterfeit money, industrial espionage, and a fashion company that may be functioning as a front for a secret criminal organization.

Directed by a group of avant-garde filmmakers, the film is an investigation of the less edifying aspects of film industry.

An island has been decimated by a volcanic eruption and the few survivors escape to a nearby island. Led by Rutolo, they know that their new home is equally susceptible to such a catastrophe via its own volcano, but they are unable to convince the current inhabitants of Island #2 to flee with them to a mainland.

A man who looks like many others enters a bar to meet a girl. As he waits for her, the bartender tells him about Floyd, a former bartender from the late '70s.

Antonio is seventeen years old and has a dream: to be a footballer in a great team. He lives in a small village in the province of Campania, a place where getting away is not always that easy. What makes the situation even more complex is the wonderful Miriam, a kind and gentle, but highly problematical mother, who Antonio loves more than any other person in the world. On top of this there is Carlo, Antonio's father who abandoned them when he was very young, and Miriam is obsessed with the idea of rebuilding her family. All of a sudden life seems to present Antonio and Miriam with a real opportunity: a talent scout looking for promising youngsters to take to the Parma team’s Primavera. But there is a high price to pay for every dream.

An American composer moves to Italy and falls for a local country girl right before the start of World War II.

The adventures of three university students who live in the same boarding house. Ugo, the most serious one, is in love with Lea, daughter of the lodger. Aldo is a practical joker, Bartolozzi is the shiest. Ugo and Lea's love story becomes stormy because of Aldo.

After World War II an Italian soldier returns to his hometown near the Alps and, unable to find a job, hooks up with a crotchety hermit who scavenges buried shells and bombs for scrap metal.

The story is about a youth named Massimo Monaldi, who, living in Rome, is a part-time college student who has some involvement in the protests that occur at his university. Massimo is also involved with drugs and he sometimes steals to make a living and support his habit (the theft of a tobacco box is very important to the story). Among his associates are his girlfriend, Cinzia, who comes from a wealthy family, and he has a wealthy male friend named Rudy who is very naive as well as strangely pampered by his overly-doting mother. Both families don't approve of their relationship with Massimo.

Political strategists in a northern Italian city push gay-rights campaigner Piero into the mayoral race, pairing him with uptight conservative toughie Adele. Piero and his partner, Remo, are the stable ones, while buttoned-up divorcee Adele nurses her bitterness.

Arturo is a Tv content autor scared by the love. Mike is an old american friend that come to visit him because his girlfriend has broken with him. Everyone wants somebody to love.

A Police SWAT troop is entering an abandoned factory where a sadistic serial killer named 'The Spider' detained his victims. The entire squad is massacred and for Doctor Leemen, psychiatrist and profiler, is the last unbearable defeat. So, he decide to leave the case and return to his ancient work in a Psychiatric clinic for teenagers. Here he treats Matthew, a sensible and introvert boy that awakes from a coma, who begins to have visions about the crimes of 'The Spider'. Matt and his friend Nick contact Hope, a young journalist that investigate about Spider's murders. Matching Hope's knowledge and Matthew's visions, they have the elements to resolve the case. Studying Matthew's visions and nightmares, they follow the killer's death's spiral from the beginning to the unavoidable face to face that hides a terrible secret.

Some people say that school days are the best day of our lives... but there are plenty of exceptions. When chronically bored student Alex seems to have no future, two of his teachers take the challenge to help him discover the motivation he lacks. The teachers, a couple in the middle of their divorce, will fight to impose the best way to make Alex a promising student.

The tragedy of Helene and her husband Pierre, whose life is shattered when Pierre is kept as a political prisoner, while Helene is denied the right to visit him. A growing fear of losing her husband to tuberculosis takes over Helene, who does all she can to meet him, even for one last time.

In "Fabiola" (1918) Herr Guarzzoni moved from the earliest days of Christianity when the new faith was struggling to just survive to a later period in the Roman Empire when the religion was a major force and attempting to win over Rome.

A young man returns to his village, and with the help of a black-clad stranger, seeks revenge for the murder of his brother against three men who are now notable men of the town.

During a debate in Naples' town hall in the early 1980s, Pasquale Picone, a former steel-worker who has recently lost his job, sets himself on fire in front of the Municipal Council.

A hooker, mother of two, leaves her abusing husband for a young boxer. On the street she gets assaulted and beaten by pimps.

A man and his girlfriend struggle to find some time for themselves.

Two unscrupulous explorers rob a sacred diamond from the Basoko tribe of leopard-men. Their white queen, Gungala, and her pet, a black panther, lead the revenge to impose the justice of the jungle.

When young cop Andrea is assigned to keep watch over dangerous Godfather Sante, who's in hospital after a fake suicide attempt, the stage is set for disaster.

A couple of young movie makers have secretly filmed for over a year what was going on in a hotel room, trying to realize a "live act" of common people living their life. They get in touch with old and money-tight producer Mengaroni to edit their movie, but while they contact the accidental actors for gathering authorization, he starts to manipulate their work.

Set between 1802 and 1818, it is the epic true story of a Spanish army officer and genius conspirator. Missioned by Spain, Domingo Badia, alias Ali Bey El Abbassi will meet Lady Hester Stanhope, an English aristocrat, better known under the name of Meleki, and they will live together an extraordinary destiny which will upset the Middle East.

A 1983 Italian film.

The Spaniards under Charles V aim to occupy all of Italy with the help of traitorous allies like Don Lorenzo. Lorenzo conspires to marry off his supposed niece Isabella to Charles V’s nephew, Prince Rodriguez, to confirm Spain’s dominance. The Black Devil, a heroic masked avenger, falls in love with the fake Isabella and takes vengeance on Lorenzo with the help of his friend Ruggerio and his men.

Bored with her bourgeois life, the young Maria Variani, daughter of a professor, meets Bruno, who is part of an amateur jazz group, and allows herself to be persuaded to join the band that plays during the radio program "The microphone is yours".

A romance between a student of a college of high class and a cadet of the nearby Naval Academy.

Rimini, 1991. For more than a year, the uno bianca gang - they always use a white Fiat Uno - has plagued the area. Their crimes are violent, sometimes killing carabineri, and there's no particular pattern: a bank one day, a petrol station the next, extortion of a small business the next. Are they terrorists? A foreign gang? Tied to the Mafia? After a particularly bloody shootout, two detectives are assigned to start fresh: they go through the notebooks of previous investigators and they interview a few witnesses again. They find a pattern in the crimes and predict the next assault, but the special task force in Bologna is dismissive. Can they carry on alone; how far will they get?

During an outbreak of violent murders in the area targeting young women, a journalist searching for a female friend gone missing ends up in a villa owned by an eccentric photographer.

A treacherous low-level mafioso greedily rips off a shipment of arms from his powerful godfather and tries to sell them to an especially dubious group of Arabs