Discoveries from Italy World Cinema

Waiting for the train that will take him away, a man goes back over moments of his small-town upbringing: the relationship with his family, his involvement in the protests of 1968 and a childhood friend died too soon.

Gianni Morandi tells the story behind the scenes of the Ariston Theater, revealing the great work and the most secret and unpublished emotions of the Sanremo Festival.

A tongue-in-cheek documentary that goes "behind the scenes" during the production of Federico Fellini's film "Amarcord" (1973).

The story of the last 55 days of Aldo Moro, seen from the point of view of his students.

Asti, third millennium. Lucia, mother and wife on the verge of boredom, opens up to friendship with the immigrant Ahmed, looking for an escape from the routine.

After his beloved wife dies, an unbalanced painter who believes himself to be the reincarnation of Vincent Van Gogh goes over the edge and digs up her corpse--with the help of his necrophiliac butler--to bring it back to his castle and use it for "inspiration". He soon meets a beautiful musician who looks exactly like his late wife and brings her back to his castle. However, she eventually discovers their secret: the butler murders young women, disposes of their bodies and uses their blood--"the color of life"--for the artist's paints.

Rome, 1968: at the pinnacle of his artistic career, Pino Pascali died in an accident. 50 years later the Pascali Museum in Apulia—where Pino was born—buys and exhibits one of his works. This is the story of a work of art returning to its origins told through Pino Musi and Pino Pascali’s photographs.

A bunch of friends stuck in a mountain shelter during a snowstorm on a weekend. They will find out that the only way to be safe is to solve a disturbing mistery that involves all of them: finding out who in the past, has committed a terrible crime. Amid shocking and unexpected revelations, they will come to doubt each other.

Set against the backdrop of 'the beautiful game', Black and White Stripes tells the epic story of Italy's legendary Agnelli family and their team, Juventus F.C., as they set out to capture an elusive gold star in order to avoid annihilation. As the inspirational journey unfolds, the film weaves in game-changing moments from their heart-wrenching legacy - revealing the profound passion between family and team. On and off the field it's love, war and breathtaking cinema.

Italian comedy

In the deepest, most remote part of the Amazon, a treasure is hidden! A treasure so valuable that men would kill for it, women would undress for it, and entire armies would fight for it !

In the Sicily of the late 1940s, two brother sculptors, tired of selling madonnas to the local churches, finally realize their dream, and set up a Sicilian production company, thanks to the help of a local bishop. They start producing one box-office failure Z-movie after the other, all with terribly bad local non-pros as actors. Covered in debts, they finally have their great chance, when a local nobleman obsessed by magic decides to invest all his wealth in the making of a movie about Cagliostro, just one year after Orson Welles' Black Magic (1949). They hire a famous American actor (Robert Englund) and start shooting "The Return of Cagliostro".

Carmine Gallone and Amleto Palermi’s The Last Days of Pompeii 1926 stages in sumptuous colour tinting the epic fall of the ancient city buried by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption. Adapted from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s love story, the film was innovative in its special effects and an early major box-office hit. A beautiful tinted restoration print was prepared using photochemical processes by Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale in the mid-1990s and the premiere screening of the restoration print was held in the amphitheatre in Pompeii, followed by a screening at the major restoration festival ‘Il Cinema Ritrovato’ in Bologna in 1998.

In the Roman guesthouse of Maria Boccioni Stagno, a failed opera singer, several picturesque figures coexist, including Professor Luigi Savoia, a violinist who also has no hope of a career ...

Courageous Alaskan canine White Fang and Daniel, his fur-trapping master are beset by wolves and later help save a widow who is being forced to marry a man she despises.

Melissa, a beautiful woman in her prime, her cousin Gianni and her elderly and paralyzed Aunt Adele live in a villa in a decadent Venice, Franca. A very young friend of the family comes to the villa. In a short time the life of the three is turned upside down.

Produced for the 1972 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Italy: The New Domestic Lanscape, Supersurface was the first of five films planned by Superstudio as a "critical reappraisal of the possibility of life without objects." Superstudio envisioned a "network of energy and information extending to every properly inhabitable area". According to the artists, this network would bring about the destruction of objects as status symbols, the elimination of the city as an accumulation of formal structures of power, and the end of specialized and repetitive work as an alienating activity. "The logical consequence," they write, "will be a new, revolutionary society in which everyone should find the full development of his possibilities".

A young man's tragic death at Beirut's seaside causes his friends to grapple with loss and to partake in his community's rites and ceremonies, exposing the city's schisms and its society's fault lines

Italian drama

To discover the truth behind the mysterious objects her uncle brought back from the Far East during her childhood, filmmaker Francesca Lixi embarks on a journey to those places through archival footage.

A timeless tale told in a florid bel canto style, Rossini’s take on the Cinderella story offers an ideal propellant for a virtuosic mezzo-soprano to rocket from rags to riches. But in this retelling, the supporting characters soar just as high: Cinderella’s Prince, her stepfather, and the Prince’s valet are given memorable arias, and the composer rounds out his score with ingenious ensemble flourishes. A vivacious masterpiece, La Cenerentola brings stock fairy tale characters to dazzling life.

A bankrupt restaurateur on the brink of suicide is suddenly treated with deference and kindness by a bizarre group of strangers — who welcome him in their home, no less! Truth is they have mistaken him for the tax man they're waiting for, desperate to save their floundering ostrich-breeding business.

Elena and Ernesto are a couple who are bitterly torn apart by the death of their only child. Three years later they have both somehow managed to start a new life. Until destiny forces them to reconnect and understand, they never really stopped loving one another other.

On Christmas Eve, three friends dressed as Santa Claus are arrested in what looks like an attempted burglary and charged with being the infamous "Santa Claus Gang". While trying to prove their innocence to the police, the trio explains why they found themselves in such a strange situation...

Garibaldi, after landing in Marsala, moves on to Naples. The liberals are overjoyed but the Bourbons are terrified. The so-called Baron Tucci, on a recommendation from England, arrives at the home of Count Sereni, a notable liberal. But he turns out not to be a patriot who has returned to Italy to take part in the fight but a degraded Bourbon official who has been promised rehabilitation if he can succeed as a spy. Tucci discovers old Sereni's second wife is one of his former lovers and persuades her to murder her husband so as to gain his inheritance. She does indeed cause the count to die, by withholding his heart medicine, but not before he destroys his will.

Armando Conforti, his family and his friends have a business: they sell souvenirs near St. Peter's, in Rome, they change dollars, in short they get along.

A septuagenarian couple are attracted to each other in a retirement home but find the institution and their fellow patients frown on their relationship.

The network where the famous anchorwoman Grace Forsyte works, is collapsing and she would do everything to regain the favour of the audience, therefore she convinces her professional team to go to the Amazon jungle for a sensational scoop about the cannibals

A wild, tragicomic adventure that satirizes history through dueling narratives by Jules Verne and his wife Honorine, each recounting young Charles Darwin’s journey to the Galápagos — a voyage teeming with pirates, pink iguanas, and a riotous mix of chaos, discovery, and revolt.

The year is 1968. Five teenage boys dream of running a movie theater in which they will not show pro-war films. One summer afternoon Giò, Delfo, Max, Ricky and Paolo learn to become trusted friends, indispensable to one another.

The imperfections of love and its bitter consequences in Turin, Italy, during the ‘80s, before the social networks and smartphones. What happens to your heart when you discover that you're madly in love with your best friend? What happens to your soul when you find out that your teacher and life coach has been hiding a clandestine love with your best friend's father? What is the true meaning of friendship when you discover that it is the only antidote to heartbreak?

Rome, 1968. A football passionate PE teacher formed the first woman team. Thirty eight years later, these women players remember with proud and a tinge of nostalgia how they stood up against all prejudices at a time when a woman wearing shorts was absolutely outrageous.

A woman, who witnessed her father kill himself as a child, invites several friends to her husband's secluded castle. Unbeknownst to them, she has a sinister motive for the invitation.

A new adventure for the Dumas musketeers who this time must save the Infanta of Spain from the intrigues of the Prince of Condé who wants to take the throne at any cost. (This film is a compendium edit made from episodes of the television series "I tre moschettieri")

In a frontier town between the USA and Mexico, Sancho and his gang assault a monastery, kill a few monks who try to oppose the invasion of the sacred building, and get away with a work of art in gold and diamonds. Andrej, a lonesome cowboy, is informed of his brother's death, one of the monks, and starts a search for the gang. Among the lawless and godless men, a fight for getting the better part of the loot is taking place and blood is flowing as much as bullets.

An ex-American GI returns to Italy to find some money he stashed before doing a prison term. He discovers his cash is now gone and quickly sets off on a manhunt to find out who stole his buried fortune.

A biopic on the personal and artistic life of Italian songwriter Fabrizio De André.

The title deliberatly recalls the famous L'oro di Napoli (Napoli's Gold) by Vittorio De Sica (1954). Alike De Sica's film here Naples is the real protagonist: Naples and its dust, not its gold. Through five episodes expressing different aspects of Naples, we have a picture of the town that doesn't belong to the postcard stereotypes...

Sentenced to life imprisonment for illegal activities, Italian International member Giulio Manieri holds on to his political ideals while struggling against madness in the loneliness of his prison cell.

The story follows Riccardo, an Austrian pianist studying in Rome and engaged to local woman Fiorella, who has a brief encounter with French tourist Germaine, igniting a love triangle involving misunderstandings, a false arrest, and romantic schemes. Starring Barbara Laage as Germaine, Alberto Sordi as Alberto, Anna Maria Ferrero as Fiorella, and Erwin Strahl as Riccardo, the film blends humor with lighthearted drama set against the backdrop of Rome's iconic landmarks. Paul Hörbiger plays Professor Roth, serving as a stern mentor to the protagonist Riccardo and delivering comic relief via his rigid academic counsel amid the story's chaotic love triangle.

Hamilan, a cruel and ambitious general, murders his king and places himself on the throne with the former king's evil niece as his queen. He then wages war against his peaceful neighbors, killing their women and enslaving their men. A hero named Ursus appears at a tournament to challenge Hamilan's authority. Though victorious at the tournament, Ursus is arrested and forced to turn a grist-mill under an overseer's lash. Meanwhile, the former king's virtuous daughter, Diana, is tormented by her evil cousin, the new queen. Sentenced to a slow and tortuous execution, Ursus breaks free and a revolt breaks out. Ursus throws Hamilan to his death in a fiery pit and then Ursus and Diana enjoy the cheers of a grateful populace. - Written by dinky-4 of Minneapolis

During Julius Caesar's invasion of Gallia: The Gauls have broken their treaty with the Romans. Marcus Valerius and his friend are sent to punish them. Antea's father wants to have peace with Rome, having once been there and acknowledging their superior culture, but Lysircus forces a severely anti-Roman politic. When her father is killed by him in treachery, Antea joins the Romans who have to evade into a swamp. She falls in love with Marcus. Will she forsake her people forever?

Massimo returns to Venice after years of fighting against the Turks. He finds his beloved Elena, who in the meantime has married the doge who is tyrannizing the city.

In Rome, the Cassamortari are people who work in the funeral business. The Pasti family's agency was founded by Giuseppe, who is willing to do anything to turn a corpse into money, preferably in black.

Pio and Amedeo are inseparable friends, or at least they were until they graduated from high school, at which point each one was faced with the question: move up north or stay in the south?

The painter Pierre Bernier becomes famous thanks to the portrait "The Naked Woman" which represents his model, the seductive Lolette. The very evening of his triumph at the Salon des Expositions, he decides to marry her. But, having become rich and famous, he soon falls in love with the Princess of Chaban and abandons the woman to whom he owes his success.

Two Vietnam vets are hired to infiltrate a religious sect and steal an ancient relic, a magic ivory tablet. Mercenaries Sugar and Mark enter a dangerous jungle full of cannibalistic natives in an unnamed Asian country and retrieve an ancient stone relic being held by a hostile religious sect. The two accept the job but something about the gig just isn't sitting right and their client may be withholding information vital to the mission and their survival.

A former priest becomes embroiled in the drama raging between a Mexican rancher, his unhappy daughter and psychotic son whilst dealing with his own issues of guilt and a loss of faith. A new relationship with the local brothel keeper seems to offer a fresh start but the rancher and his son are set on making him pay for his interference and his own inner demons are never far away.