Discoveries from Italy World Cinema

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.

A country braggart bets that he can spend a night with a local beauty. When he is surprised by her husband, he is not only forced to pay his friends money but also challenged to come up with a new identity other than Casanova or Don Juan.

Francesco, nicknamed 'Toscano', is a very good pool player but he never wins when he plays for money. He meets Chiara, a saxophone player, on a late night bus by swapping his case containing the cue with her one, containing the sax. The two fall in love, but in the meantime Francesco loses a big amount of money playing versus 'Scuro', the long-time Italian champion. His only chance to pay the debt is to win the Italian Championships.

"Remove your legs from the windshield" - Alberto, an engineer over forty years old, on his return from an inspection, a nineteen-year-old Parisian student called Sylvie is looking for a ride. Even though the girl reminds him of her daughter Francesca's age, Alberto decides to accompany her to Rome, with the secret hope of being able to derive an adventure from her.

A musician named Jacques Christens, is given a proposition by an old man. For ten million Francs he is asked to impersonate a certain Paul de Baer – a man who is supposedly exiled in the Amazone. Christens is told this scheme will save Mr. Baer from ruin. An adaptation of Boileau and Narcejac's "D'entre les Morts".

A woman wants to graduate to the Italian Naval Academy in the 60s. She has to fight her family, her friends and a world not ready to accept her.

Mamma Stella is on edge. As if she hadn't got enough trouble already with her daughter Rosa Maria, who has left her husband now Costantino, her son, has disrobed. Afraid to be the talk of the village, relegates him to a distant lighthouse belonging to the family. But Costantino does not remain far from the madding crowd for long. It does not take long indeed before all the local (or even distant) outcasts flock together there: Magnolia, a retired escort girl; Arturo, Rosa Maria's estranged husband; Valbona, a lesbian; Rosa Maria herself; and, to crown it all, two eccentric workers accompanied by a little girl... After a period of chaos, this small world gradually discovers that unity makes strength.

The life and artistic journey of Neapolitan actor Massimo Troisi.

In Milan, in the winter of 1944, the ruthless Cane Nero leads the fascists against the partisans. Enne 2, one of the leading figures of the C.N.L., meets Berta, whom he loved three years ago, but Berta refuses to leave her husband for him. Enne 2 is pursued by the fascists of Cane Nero and, instead of running away to Turin, waits for Berta to rejoin him

It is the first film of the comedy trio "I GianCattivi", formed by Athina Cenci, Francesco Nuti and Benvenuti, who won the Nastro d'Argento for Best New Director. The film is set in Florence, Tuscany, with some scenes shot in Prato.The title is an inside joke that refers to the Tuscan village of Paperino, which is a district of Prato; the film's surreal and grotesque undertones are also hinted by the title itself, since "Paperino" is also the Italian name for Donald Duck.

Francesca, a young woman seeking lighthearted relaxation, joins her friends at the family estate for a night of fun. But what begins as a carefree game quickly turns into a nightmare.

A mad scientist pursues a man hoping to study his brain.

David McVicar’s production of Giulio Cesare manages to combine serious insight with entertainment, bringing Handel's masterpiece to life in a powerful, convincing and highly intelligent way. ln every line of the complex narrative the subtle nuances are apparent, reflecting perfectly the transparent and exquisite nature of Handel's musical expression. Filmed in High Definition and recorded in true surround sound, the outstanding singing of the all-star cast, led superbly by Sarah Connolly, and the vivid playing of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under the energising baton of William Christie reveal the colour and dramatic character of Handel’s music in a most delightful manner.

The key stages in the career of director and actor Maurizio Nichetti, following his return with the film Amichemai. The documentary recounts his unique career, between surreal comedy, visual experimentation and cinematic poetry, revealing the soul of an unconventional author capable of revolutionizing the language of cinema.

The film is set in Reggio Calabria in the late eighties, when bribes are everywhere and the power of the city is in the hands of two bosses: Saro Lodato and Cocò Raffati.

The well off daughter of a tenor breaks up a romance with a helpful youth from a misunderstanding. But she continues to cover him with his gambling debts despite her delicate health.

After a 22 years marriage, a couple shows the signs of a crisis. She thinks he has a lover, and it actually seems so, but does the other woman really exist?

The film takes us on a voyage to a hidden Italy rarely addressed on film: Gay Italy as it was lived in the 20th century, from the turn of the century up to the 80s. The documentary gives voice to those who personally had to bear the weight of being "different", remembering how their lives were shaped by this situation during Fascism and in the aftermath of World War II, in an anthropologically and culturally widely diverse nation. Theirs is a mixed testimony of repression, censorship, dignity, courage, and happiness, making way for the final image of a world - our world - that still has a long way to go towards respect and liberty for everyone.

A gang of robbers armed with a union army cannon rob the bank holding bounty Killer Acquasanta Joe's earnings to date. He pursues, crossing and double crossing along the way.

Presented as a forbidden TV broadcast, this horror anthology revives unsettling short films from the world.

In the 19th century Europe, an aging scheming couple decides to manipulate and seduce a couple of young newlyweds in love, just for the fun of it.

Pasquale Bellachioma, the unfortunate Police Commissioner, creates a "master stroke" that can finally put it to light before their superiors, but the results is continuous failure.

The movie will chart the journey of Richard and Cosima Wagner as they arrive in Venice following the prèmiere of Parsifal in 1882. The plot will turn on an alternative history, as it will see Wagner’s father-in-law, Franz Liszt, follow the couple soon after as news of a comet headed towards earth launches Wagner into composing one final piece of music.

Two proud and estranged brothers, a disputed inheritance and a past that comes back. When he hears about the passing of his father - whom he has not seen in many years - Salvo returns to his native Sicily. He intends to convince his brother Lillo to sell the family farm and save his pizzeria, which is about to go bankrupt - a secret that he has kept even from his wife and children. But things will not be easy and Salvo will have to come to terms with his choices. A bittersweet comedy about family relations and how one never stops growing up, not even at fifty.

Penniless noblewoman Carlotta agrees to marry poor gas station attendant Camillo in order to take possession of her inheritance, but only provided that he refines his manners in a Suisse boarding school.

A singer and operetta dancer works in a small french town where the authorities want to expel her because of her scandalous conduct and performance. When a puritan judge closes the show, the woman will take revenge involving the judge in an affair before the selfsame Justice minister. From that moment on, a series of diversions and misunderstandings will play out leading the main characters to the city of Paris.

The romantic entanglements within a colorful family tree that has grown up around three sisters, Carmen, Viola, and Aida, during the celebration of a son's birthday in a house on the island of Elba. Based on the novel by Simona Izzo.

King Bohlem, brother of the late Attila, reconquers former Hun territory. To secure this territory, he sends his son, Otto, and his nephew, Tharus, to forge an alliance with King Haadem, strongest of the neighboring rulers. Haadem, however, is just concluding an alliance with Kudrum, the ambitious son of a king hostile to Hun interests. To cement this alliance, Haadem has agreed to marry his daughter, Tamall, to Kudrun, but Tamall dislikes Kudrum. She quickly falls in love with the newly-arrived Tharus. Kudrum inflames Haadem's feelings against Tharus and arranges to have Tharus publicly flogged. Not satisfied, Kudrum then murders Haadem and has the crime blamed on Tharus. Tamall's love for Tharus is tested but then she comes to believe Tharus's claims of innocence and works on behalf of Tharus as Kudrum's forces arrive for a decisive battle.

Carlo, an elderly widowed farmer, is about to marry Elena, a young Brazilian woman, and calls his children to his country home for a family gathering.

Tells the story of two young women who accidentally meet three young people of the high society. The two men and their female friend lure the unsuspecting girls into a house by the sea, where they start to play a mean game with hem by first irritating them before terrorizing and attack them. Meanwhile, the boyfriend of one of the girls starts searching for them.

Puccini's masterpiece La Bohème is by far the most represented opera in the world. At the famous Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago (2014), where Puccini composed his main operas, La Bohème is directed by one of Italy’s greatest film directors: Ettore Scola, the creator of a high number of award-winning seminal films. As he explains in the programme notes, as soon as he was approached to stage La Bohème he had to fight hard to resist the temptation to give life to his “revolutionary” ideas; in the end, he decided for a traditional looking, rich, grandiose and detailed Bohème. Together with the exceptional cast of Daniela Dessì, Fabio Armiliato, Alessandro Luongo, Marco Spotti and Alida Berti, this production makes for an incomparable great performance.

Unfolding in the world of stock car racing, an up-and-coming driver gets mixed up in a dangerous love triangle and deadly rivalry with a hot-shot driver and his sexy girlfriend.

The two mercenaries Robert and Brian, specialists in dangerous missions, are given the task of freeing a kidnapped medical team from the clutches of the South American dictator General Rodriguez. With a team of mercenaries they look for the hostages with whom Rodriguez wants to blackmail the American government. In a bloody battle, the hostages, including the young doctor Denise, manage to free themselves from the general's house. After a bomb attack, Robert and Denise are separated from their troops and must make their way alone through the wilderness to the agreed meeting point...

The story is set in southern Italy and recounts the tragedy of Canio, the lead clown (or pagliaccio in Italian) in a commedia dell'arte troupe, his wife Nedda, and her lover, Silvio. When Nedda spurns the advances of Tonio, another player in the troupe, he tells Canio about Nedda's betrayal. In a jealous rage Canio murders both Nedda and Silvio. Although Leoncavallo's opera was originally set in the late 1860's, Zeffirelli's production is updated to the period between World War I and World War II.

Ettore has spent the last five years in jail for a robbery. Once out of prison, he has nowhere to go, his wife broke up with him and doesn’t want him to meet their little daughter who was born right before he was arrested. Alone and desperate, Ettore roams the streets of Rome and meets a strange old man, Nicola. He decides to take advantage of him and rob him. But after breaking into his house, Ettore realizes Nicola doesn’t have anything worth stealing and furthermore, the old man tells him a rather stranger thing: he affirms to be Santa Claus…

Italy, 1997. When Clara and Irène, both 17, meet they are nothing like each other but get on marvellously well. They run away together to a faraway island off the coast of Sicily to live their summer freely, and to hide from a reality they want to forget.

Documentary on various horror movies that Joe D'Amato directed and/or produced in the 1970's, 1980's, and early 1990's.

This telecast offers a rare opportunity to see the legendary Joan Sutherland in the role that first catapulted her to international stardom. She drove audiences wild by the way her opulent voice caressed the music’s long phrases and sprinted effortlessly through the fiendish runs, trills, embellishments and stratospheric high notes. One of the glories of the operatic world, her portrayal of Donizetti’s hapless heroine is a multifaceted and moving characterization. The incomparable tenor Alfredo Kraus is Edgardo, the man Lucia loves but cannot have. (Performance taped November 13, 1982. Broadcasted September 28, 1983.)

A teacher, a gunman, an ex-Colonel and a beautiful girl decide to steal a big load of gold stored in Fort Henderson. The task is not easy, because the fort is very well guarded, but with adventurous stratagems...

In the 21st century, aliens with mind-control powers attempt to take over the earth.

In a small French village, an angel appears disguised as a beautiful young blond.

Paola and Andrea find out they both loved (and lost) the same man. They get over their mutual distrust and their friendship gradually develops to the point that they feel they should marry one another, but without giving up their personal freedom and sexual predilections. Theirs is a true love match: a marriage based on friendship and mutual respect, where sex does not come into the equation. The question is, will they stay together, or will society and its mores intervene?

Cosimo is Italian, Nicole French. They meet in Genoa during the G8 protests and immediately fall in love. Swept off their feet by an overwhelming and uncontrollable passion, they decide never to part. After much wandering they decide to return to Genoa, where they start working for a friend of theirs who organises concerts. Things seem to be going well until a tragic accident almost sours their relationship, as a result of which they’re faced with two options that can change their future. Forever.

Andrea, Maurizio and Sergio are professional idlers, lazy, indolent and full of inventiveness. Maurizio is engaged to the policewoman Anna, of whom he is extremely jealous, Sergio still lives with his mother and Andrea is tyrannized by his wife and his brother-in-law, a former boxer. When a crew arrives in town to shoot a commercial, Andrea and Sergio meet two actresses; in the meantime, Maurizio is dumped by Anna. The three spend a large sum of money on a scratch card to travel to Sardinia in search of the actresses in the commercial.

Two young men try to make it big as musicians.

Great encounter in Rome with filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky where he develops some of his major ideas on artistic creation and in particular the importance of the temporal dimension in his conception of cinema. Tarkovsky also comments on excerpts from film directors that inspired him like Kurosawa, Buñuel and Antonioni. The "prologue" at the beginning is a quote from Tarkovsky's film Andrei Rublev.

A radio operator for the British Army is captured in a Nazi-occupied Dutch city.

The evil Queen Tenefi demands that a steady supply of young women be sacrificed to the God of Fire. Maciste intervenes and saves from this sacrifice a village's women including the beautiful Antea. Maciste then becomes involved in an effort to restore to the throne of Memphis its rightful ruler, Prince Iram.

In 1931, when the late American Prohibition major bosses have now divided the territory to exploit, the family of one of them - killed in a clash - decides to send half a million dollars in Sicily hidden in the body of the deceased.