Discoveries from Italy World Cinema

The story of homeless boys on the streets of Naples and of a priest who uses unusual methods to try to help them.

A sergeant finds out that a GI hides a child in the military barracks. The boy is the son of another soldier who sings in a night club but due to series of misunderstandings the sergeant believes he is his own son, born from a former love story.

Dario, a young electronics enthusiast, decides in the late evening to take a trip down the street to throw out the garbage to kill time - waiting for his "freeze-dried tart" to finish ...getting ready - but his return to home is hindered by many bizarre, violent and out of the ordinary characters who one after another involve him in their delusions, making him run far and wide.

The Russian magnate Ivanov dreams about having The Popcorn, his favorite Italian musical band from the 80s in Saint Petersburg.

A courtesan sacrifices her relationship with a youthful admirer after the man's father pleads with her. Adapted from Giuseppe Verdi's 1853 opera in the three acts "La Traviata".

Planet Earth has become a gigantic landfill, as a gardener and her husband learn too late.

After ending up in jail, a thief in Naples with a beautiful fiance and a good friend has to decide which path his life should take.

On the first of May 1947, the bandit Salvatore Giuliano conducted a raid to the mountain pass Portella della Ginestra, with a view to capturing Sicily's most prominent communist, Giacomo Licausi. What actually happened was a regular massacre, leaving fourteen people dead and more than thirty wounded. In 1951, about a year after Giulano's violent death, his men are tried in Viterbo. Unconvinced by the official version, Gaspare Pasciotta's lawyer, decides to travel to Sicily and starts investigating the facts.

A naive young man from rural Oregon travels to San Francisco to pursue his big city dreams.

The story of a teenager whose biggest dream is to marry Simon Le Bon, singer of pop band Duran Duran.

The brother of Mevlevi Sheikh Ahmet Nurettin is thrown into prison despite being innocent. Dervish believes that his brother will eventually return because he is innocent. However, his hopes are shattered when the judge sentences his brother to death. The dervish embarks on a great reckoning within himself, decides to confront those responsible, and begins to incite the people to revolt. Over time, he himself will become part of the very power he opposes...

Oscar, not quite a child anymore, scavenges for scrap metal for his father. He spends his life in improvised landfills among what remains of leftovers. Worlds apart, yet close-by, there is Stanley. He tidies the church in exchange for a monetised hospitality, picks fruits, herds sheep: anything that keep his foreign body busy. Oscar, the young Sicilian, and Stanley the Nigerian don’t seem to have much in common. Except for the feeling of being thrown into the world, to suffer the same refusal, the same overwhelming wave of choices imposed on them by others.

After his mother has an accident, obese Julien (14) is taken in by his uncle's family in Switzerland. The family, who to all appearances are totally "normal", make Julien's nutrition and well-being their highest priority. But then Julien falls in love with Keiko, a young Japanese girl. In order to seduce her he pretends to be a Sumo-champion but soon finds himself in a quandary: he needs to lose weight for his new family, but he needs to gain weight if he is going to take part in the Sumo training and seduce Keiko. Bit by bit Julien's lies start to crumble and it becomes very apparent that the other protagonists' notion of normality is very relative.

A musical drama based on Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto.

A funk is believed to be a tough guy because of a magic bowler hat which gives him courage and strength.

Pietro and Lucia live on an isolated farm with Alice, Lucia's younger sister. Poor farmers, they live tilling the soil. Pietro is a good worker and a strong man who, unlike his three brothers, is not at war because of a deformed knee. Lucia is a beautiful and reserved woman dedicated to her family. Their life is peaceful and good, in spite of the hard work. One day, while drawing water from the well, Pietro and Alice accidentally free something from Earth's womb. A strange and alien color flashes underwater, at the well's bottom, then disappears. From that moment on, inexplicable events start happening all around the farm, and by night the surrounding vegetation glitters with a sinister glow. The color soon takes hold of the whole farm, and dwelling inside Pietro and his family's minds, it brings them into its sick world of pain, blood and death.

The film is set in the elegant café "Il Quattro Palme" traditionally frequented by intellectuals, lovers of lyric music and poetry.

A simple barberman from Naples travel to Arabia for search a big fortune that could make him rich.

In southern Morocco, a hold-up is organized on the road linking the northern towns to a major factory built on a gold deposit. Several accomplices have perfected a carefully thought-out "scenario" that should bring them success. Travis, a specialist, and his mistress, Lila, a former barmaid, "work" in liaison with Vibert, the mine engineer. José, the local mechanic, and Georges, the truck driver, have already been sacrificed.

A journalist wants to make a film about the life and death of Claretta Petacci, the mistress of Benito Mussolini. For this, she will turn to her sister Miriam.

Alberto Sordi directs and interprets a corrosive comedy, another "story of an Italian" that makes you smile and reflect. An arms dealer is exposed and would like to return to an honest business. But his family does not intend to give up that bloody money.

An account of the life of the Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653), the first female artist to get international acclaim, recognized as a modern icon, due to her personality and her unyielding defense of her professional integrity.

Bernardo is dumped by his girlfriend, his career as a rock music critic is beginning to decline and stars to see a psychologist but in the meantime he meets the problematic and shy Camilla, who disrupts his life.

Falchi is a melodrama set in the city of Naples, in its pulsating multi ethnic veins. The movie tells the story of two agents of the Special Squad of Naples, a police unit that investigates organized crime. Though impeccable at their work, the two cops hide strong weaknesses, shady secrets, loneliness, and overwhelming passions in their private lives.

In a despairing, fatalistic Rome, Nicola finds himself flirting with the city’s dark side. Drinking too much and living among drifters, petty criminals and anxious immigrants, Nicola becomes entwined in an insurance scam that leads him further into a netherworld he may never escape.

Policarpo De Tappetti is a calligrapher who works under the orders of Don César Pancarano de Rondò. For many years, Policarpo has been seeking a promotion and a raise that never comes, and, it seems, will never come. One day, Jerónimo, the son of Don César, meets Celeste, the daughter of Policarpo, and falls in love with her. Policarpo sees in that relationship the solution to his aspirations at work, and does everything in his power to make this relationship fruitful. Don César, who presumes to be a count, sees with very bad eyes that his son meets a girl from such a different social position, and does just the opposite. But the efforts made by both parties will be of no use, since Celeste has fallen in love with Mario Marquetti, a "specialized mechanic" (typist) who is giving private lessons in the offices of the businessman Franquinet .

It's moving day for the Via Marsili 19th apartment in Bologna, Italy, a former hotbed of the Movement of 1977. While waiting for the movers to finish their job, cultural agitator Franco Bifo Berardi leads us through a decade-long trip down memory lane.

A mysterious archer who dresses in black is out for revenge against the bandits who killed his father.

A man recruits the help of his gangster brother-in-law to retrieve his stolen car.

Giulio is an advertising agent; in order to conclude an important contract with a refrigerator manufacturer, he moves into their boss's villa for the weekend with his mistress, along with his designer, who is accompanied by the advertising agent's wife for an adventure. This is the beginning of a series of misunderstandings until the head of the advertising agency arrives and exposes them. Thanks to the providential intervention of the industrialist, who had noticed the deception perpetrated against him, everything is resolved and the head of the agency finds his new love in the woman who accompanied Giulio.

The owner of a high-tech heating mechanism is being forced by gangsters to help them in a plot to steal gold ingots. An ex-secret agent is called in to search for him and stop the criminals.

When a school trip leaves a group of teenagers stranded far from home, the recent suicide of a classmate begins to expose the fractures, loyalties and secrets holding them together.

An aimless young troublemaker, Alessandro, squanders his days gambling and getting into fights, and he often spends his nights in jail. With few prospects, he begrudgingly accepts a job as a companion to Giorgio, an elderly poet suffering from Alzheimer’s. On their daily walks, the two banter and become friends, and Alessandro quickly learns more about this forgotten poet as the old man’s memory drifts. After learning a secret from Giorgio’s past, Alessandro and his friends work to uncover the mystery of this tale, an unexpected history lesson and a touching coming-of-age adventure.

A comedy about an unemployed fellow who goes to live with his brother and runs into trouble with his brother's overbearing wife.

A hotshot, wisecracking New York newspaper reporter, teams up with his crippled Army buddy Steve and sexy pilot Anne in Argentina to find an airplane called Condor rumored to have been carrying Chinese treasure when it crashed into a glacier forty years earlier.

Story of two friends who rescue bumbling bandit Fidel from a shootout. While patching him up, they discover half of a treasure map tattooed on his back. Learning that the other half is tattooed on the back of someone else, they set about trying to put the two halves together while being joined by card sharp and all round trickster who discovers their secret and wants in on the deal.

In this short documentary, Michelangelo Antonioni enters the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome to contemplate Michelangelo Buonarroti’s statue of Moses. The film consists of Antonioni’s silent observation of the sculpture and the surrounding space, recorded during a visit following the restoration of the monument.

Cocco and Stefano are two unlikely friends bonded by a mutual goal: reach Samarkand from the mountains of Northeast Italy. Cocco is an old biker with a troubled past whose dream is to depart towards the East with his Harley-Davidson from ’39. Stefano is a young director who wants to make a film about the adventure and the story of his friend. Between the highs and lows of a quixotic trip, the challenge will reveal bigger than the two expected. Only through friendship, Cocco and Stefano will be able to reach their dreams.

With their time machine, the three Supermen try to recover antique treasures and end up in the West and find the most famous treasure of THE BANDIT. But the treasures vanish when they try to take them into their time.

The Roteò make people happy with their somersaults and acrobatics, until their abilities are taken away and they must find a way to get them back.

A scientist & inventor in 1907, Dr Plonk, predicts that the world will end in 101 years, unless something is done about it.

On the evening of June 27, 1980, a DC9 of the private airline Itavia disappeared from radar screens without sending any emergency signal. The aircraft, stabilized in cruise at 7.600 meters above sea level, sank into the Tyrrhenian Trench, between Ponza and Ustica. 81 people lost their lives, including 14 children. There are three hypotheses about the disaster, but none has ever been proven, until the analysis of the findings and documentary material reveals a fourth, chilling possible cause of the disaster.

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.

A man enters a restaurant in Trastevere, in the suburbs of Rome, and asks the owner to cook him the superb bass he has just been given. He wants it served at the dinner gathering like every year the group of inseparable friends he is a member of. The others join him. The last to come is a lawyer who has just liquidated the succession of the one that will be missing tonight. The deceased leaves them an estate in Umbria provided they live there in community. What will the friends decide during this dinner like no other?

When Debora's ex-husband, a popular neomelodic singer, loses his life in a stage dive, she worries that her 11-year-old son Ciro may be showing symptoms of depression. Taken to a child psychologist, shy Tommaso, Ciro eventually confesses to him that it's not his father's death that has got him down, it's love for his classmate, the cute Ludovica. The two make a deal: Tommaso will help Ciro to win the affections of Ludovica, while Ciro will give Tommaso a hand at having a chance with his mother.

A couple inherits a mansion, but when they move in they discover that it is haunted by the murderous spirits of people who have died there.

Michele and Valentina are about to get married despite the financial problems that threaten to make the first years of their marriage very difficult. Valentina wishes she could skip the first five years of marriage and find herself at a point in her life where all the difficulties have been resolved. A mysterious man who has overheard everything grants her wish, and the couple reunites in Spain, where he is a successful singer but the couple feels uneasy.

Bruno, a textbook anxious man, is persuaded by his teenage daughter to host his ex-wife Terry for a month, just out of a long psychiatric hospitalization. After all, it’s only 30 nights—what could possibly go wrong? Yet Terry’s exuberance and blunt honesty put Bruno’s routine to the test, as he finds himself stuck in a lackluster relationship and in a job where he struggles to assert himself as he would like.

Franco Maresco celebrates the heritage of Pier Paolo Pasolini on the 99th anniversary of his birth through a series of exchanges with renowned intellectuals which were involved or influenced by his works and ideas.

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.

Deep South Italian seventies. The performing and penniless sales representative "Tano" Avallone, fell in love with the beautiful Mariangela, sixteen-year-old daughter of the widowed lawyer "Totonno" Fortis Pantaleo. In order to approach the girl, he enters the graces of the professional, posing as his childhood friend and saying he is willing to eliminate the elderly Donna Mercedes, mother of these, so that he can inherit the substances. Guest of the family, Tano finds himself involved in a whirlwind of feminine attentions, including the free-range governess Immaculate, unnecessarily coveted by the lawyer, and the servant Sisina, desired by the parish priest.

Upon his death, a young African director, Abramo Malonga, bequeathed his first and last unfinished film to his former teacher, the Italian director Fausto Morelli. Morelli, who after seeing the work, is confronted with a confusing, complex and, in part, incomprehensible work. Helped by the young widow of Abramo Malonga and by the notes left by his deceased friend, and again by his personal memories, the Italian director attempts to reconstruct and complete the film. Fausto's work progresses with difficulty, not only because of the problems the film poses for him, but because of the problems that arise in his daily life. After a long crisis, after which he returns to Pisa with his former party companions and abandons himself to love and his own solitude, Fausto takes up the work of his African friend, closing it with a final invention, in which , with a bold metaphor, has refigured the human condition of our time.

Pollution caused by an incinerator drives people mad and turns them into maniac killers. But, instead of the victims' bodies, the three wise monkeys are found (one cannot hear, one cannot see, one cannot speak).

Two couples live their erotic fantasies out until one of the women is murdered.

Incredibly, the bride at the altar falls in love with the best man on first sight, and even though he makes efforts to avoid her infatuation with him, she is determined to annul her marriage and marry the best man. And although she is able to dissolve her marriage, because she has never consummated it, the best man leaves... only to return to her many months later.