Discoveries from Italy World Cinema

A young student is visited by a mysterious and wealthy philosopher with an offer to make the student his heir .

Five teenagers during a late summer party play with an artificial intelligence that draws dangerous challenges: the most extreme of all will force them to abandon their innocence.

Still unaware that her new friend is Prince Charles, Cinderella must help him uncover the evil Duke Zaral's plot to overthrow the Kingdom. In order to seize power, the Duke plans to have Charles marry his daughter. When Charles refuses, the Duke hopes to ultimately eliminate the Prince by creating a double of him. Cinderella and Charles rush to thwart the Duke's evil plans before it's too late!

Tracing the journey of a free thinker, engineer, writer, scriptwriter, actor and director through his life and work, Così Parlo De Crescenzo harnesses the energy of a man determined to transform the lives and culture of those around him. Born in Naples, Luciano De Crescenzo graduated in engineering and worked as a programmer for IBM until 1976, when he escaped the routine of his 'corporate prison' and published his first book.

In a small Tuscan village that's waiting for the local festival to commence, amidst confusion about the fall of Communism, the lives of some dazed characters intertwine.

The Cooper gang is terrorizing the town of Stanton with heinous crimes. When the gang rapes and murders an innocent young widow, the sheriff teams up with a notorious gunslinger, the brother of the murdered widow, in order to enact vengeance and justice. Because the lawman's and the gunfighter's methods are so different, two more innocent deaths occur, a friend of the sheriff and a lady friend of the gunfighter ...How will this end?

The adventures of the Milanese yuppies continue, always polished, "at home" in via Montenapoleone or at Nepentha, impeccable in dressing and "winning" at work, a little less in private life.

A young father and his two children struggle to find harmony after his wife leaves them for another man.

The film begins when Eugenio, a 14 year old child, is conduced from his grandparents home outside Rome, to Giancarlo (his father) in the city, by Giancarlo's friend (called "Moustache"). As Eugenio is bothering Moustache, he threatens Eugenio with leaving him in the middle of the country. He finally does it. When Giancarlo finds out, they return for Eugenio, but he is now lost. Meanwhile we're told the story of the child and his relation with the family, and why he feels unwanted.

Clearly inspired by the then-mayor of Naples Antonio Bassolino, with references to the problems of the city and its hopes of a renaissance, the works of Francesca Spada, the crow of Pasolini's The Hawks and the Sparrows. Segment of "I vesuviani" (1997).

A dangerous criminal group wants to destroy St. Peter's Basilica and the secret agent James Tont is the only one who can help it.

A noble family assigns their younger son to the convent. The youngster has an affair with a novice, who becomes pregnant. The brothers, exasperated by his arrogance, denounce him to the Inquisition. As a punishment, the boy is walled up alive and released after fifty years. Due to a mysterious miracle, however, he remained as he is, just like the novice he impaled.

Combining musical and dance numbers with comedy sketches (performed by members of The Armando Curcio Company and The Gauthier Ballet Troupe)without any plot, this is more of a revue than a movie, along the lines of The Ed Sullivan television series in the U.S.

An American woman is robbed in Greece. A policeman pretending to be her suitor investigates among her acquaintances. The suspects will prove them selves to be innocent while the real culprit is a friend of hers.

Sor Clemente tries to avoid an underwater fishing trip together with his authoritarian wife's friends and pretends to be ill. Left alone in the villa he's left in the company of a friend and a butler.

Anthology comedy structured in 10 episodes (The Exam, Blue Bloods, Too Easy, Love Italian Style, Sunday Story, Wedding Present, Gold Fischer, The Tuxedo, Railway Courtesy, Play Boy). Whimsical exploration of the mores, customs and vices of Italy at that time.

Verso l'ora zero is an Italian television film from 1980. It is based on the Agatha Christie novel Towards Zero.

Don Vincenzo is a well respected boss from Naples, but he protects people from other criminals, like gypsies, loan sharks and Don Bufalo...but as they say in Naples, a Mammasantissima either ends in jail or inside a grave.

Italy, early 80's. A political terrorist is being transferred northward from Sicily for a conjugal visit; during the journey, a police captain tries to make him cooperate.

Giuseppe Verdi's one prologue, three act opera featuring libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and Arrigo Boito is performed before a live audience at Florence's Teatro Comunale in this release featuring the music of the Orchestra and Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under conductor Claudio Abbado, and starring Carlo Guelfi, Julian Konstantinov, and Karita Mattila.

An Italian composer in crisis takes a break in Valencia, where he takes a shine to a famous singer.

Between Turin and Pisa unfolds the life of a socially and professionally successful university professor of law. Endowed with great intelligence and an elusive charm, the man and the professor lead a “withdrawn” existence that occasionally borders on the beds of casual lovers. Determined to control reality and keep it carefully at arm's length, he becomes involved despite himself in the suicide death of a student. The boy, obsessed with the professor's life, has painstakingly recorded his lectures, his behavior, his habits...

Aging fashion model Benedetta Barzini strives to escape the world of images and disappear for good, but her son’s determination to make a final film about her sparks an unexpected collaboration and confrontation with the camera’s gaze.

Left disfigured and without memory due to a car accident, the painter Andrea Spiegelman decides to retire with her husband to an isolated villa, the legacy of an eccentric uncle dedicated to the cultivation of psychoactive plants. With the help of a diary in which his uncle wrote down his experiences, Andrea begins to experiment with drugs extracted from plants. Thanks to drugs, the painter recovers the lost inspiration and returns to painting, but without realizing it, she is dragged into a whirlwind of hallucinations that lead her to no longer distinguish reality from fantasy...

Christina of Sweden, in exile in Rome, takes a handsome Italian officer as her lover. But he is in love with the very young wife of an elderly count. After many adventures, duels, settling of old scores, the officer and the countess get married. Former Queen Christina finds herself another captain of the guard.

A story about summer vacation of six young boys and their friends in France during 1917.

François Toledo, married businessman and father, falls head-over-heels in love with Janine, a work colleague. However, he is soon found out: after three dates, he strangles some prostitutes, when, the victim of blackmail, he becomes dishonored. He is taken to court, and sentenced to be killed by a guillotine.

Clarissa works as a bartender and is being forced by the owner to pull a double shift on the very day they're talking. But she has an unbreakable commitment that's going to send her back in time.

A heavily indebted film producer tries to get back on his feet by producing a film starring Kim Novak. He also hopes to start a new relationship with his estranged son.

Gianni Manera writes, directs and stars in this violent U.S. based story of Mafia members and Black gangsters fighting for turf.

On the 20th anniversary of Federico Fellini's death, Ettore Scola, a devoted admirer of the incomparable maestro, commemorates the lesser-known aspects of his personality, employing interviews, photographs, behind-the-scenes footage as well as his drawings and film clips.

De Gregori's last concert that flopped really hard.

Benedetta, an obese fifteen-year-old yearning for attention, lives in a tawdry province in the south of Italy, emblematic of her inner landscape where everything could be and yet is not. She falls in love with Armando, aka Amanda, a young transvestite who is attracted to the young girl's innocence and begins an unhealthy relationship of mutual dependence with her. Amanda runs a carousel at the fair across the street from Benedetta's house, and the girl is magnetically drawn to this colorful and exciting world. But Amanda not only runs the carousel, she's also a call boy and sells drugs. Between intoxication and family rebellion and the discovery of sex - a great disappointment - she completes her rite of passage into adulthood.

Documentary on the penetration of drugs in Milan in the 70s. Filomena is only 24 years old and recounts with a lucidity that takes her breath away her journey as a child locked up in boarding school, ran away from home, taken back by her family and treated as a lost woman. She talks about her marriage to a boy who emigrated to Germany, and her inability to adapt to this new situation. She narrates the arrival in Milan, the meeting with Antonio and the one with drugs. A dialogue for two voices traces the ruthless picture of drug addiction, the daily search for the dose and the attempts to get out of it. It is a poignant document, above all for the lucidity, measure, maturity and intelligence of two unforgettable figures.

This 1980 on-set documentary features an extensive look behind the scenes of the film.

The film is the personal story of a protagonist of our times and traces Carlo Martini's actions and thoughts, as he has remained faithful to its vocation and ideals. Through dramatic events (terrorism, Tangentopoli, labor crisis, conflict, loneliness) Carlo Martini interpreted losses and concerns of the people, who saw a free man and a non dogmatic prince of the Gospel Church. Thanks to the authenticity of his testimony he has been a reference point for believers and non-believers, a prophet of hope, a forerunner of Pope Francis.

Mockumentary that looks at various 'unusual' sexual practices.

Giuliano, kindergarten teacher, goes to his ex's birthday, meets Liliana and falls in love with her.

While traveling through the kingdom of Sulom, Samson is arrested and finds that the queen no longer reigns and that a power-mad warlord and his army of mercenaries now controls the kingdom. Samson teams up with some of his one-time adversaries to battle the usurper and restore the rightful queen to power.

Our hero is the 18-year-old Alessio Mainardi, who receives a token red carnation from a girl named Giovanna and becomes a symbol of love, desire, and even has political overtones as a symbol of the struggle for political freedom in opposition to Fascism.

A brilliant surgeon and millionaire, married to a beautiful woman, and highly regarded in the society of Venice, wants more from life and searches for new sensations. Adapted from the 1926 novella Dream Story by the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler.

Milo, tyrant of Sparta, has betrayed the Achea League. The evidence of betrayal is hidden by one of the rebels who is killed before he can reveal the hiding place to his friend Keros.

Casablanca 1942. While French Police Chief Maurice Desjardins is busy having careless fun with some loose girls, members of the French Resistance kill a man at the harbor and steal his briefcase full of important documents from the Third Reich. At an apartment building in the distance, Andre Kuhn watches the whole operation through his powerful binoculars. He is posing as a businessman but actually working as a spy for the Germans a fact totally ignored by his live-in girlfriend Teresa Villar, a beautiful Spanish singer who works at El Dorado Night Club. Andre telephones Max von Stauffen, the head of German Intelligence in Casablanca, to inform him of what he has just witnessed. Max tells him to stay put until he arrives in order to get the information personally but, by the time he reaches Andres apartment, he finds him dead with a gun shot on his temple.

It’s June 1st, 1970, and Pisa is the epicenter of the movement Lotta Continua. There are rumors of an imminent coup d’état, and the most visible exponents fear being arrested before dawn. One of them is Pino Masi, a singer-songwriter who wrote the hit “La ballata del Pinelli.” He invites two high school students, Renzo Lulli and Fabio Gismondi, to flee Italy with him, and the three set off. A series of misunderstandings ensues, starting with an unnerving encounter with soldiers on their way to Rome for the national holiday the next day.

After spending the night at home with his wife and daughter, Massimo leaves to buy some flowers. However, things don't go exactly as planned.