Discoveries from Italy World Cinema

A group of tenants and visitors are trapped in a 10-story high-rise apartment building infested with demons who proceed to hunt the dwindling humans down.

Determined to exact his justice, Django faces dangerous challenges and bloody clashes to restore order in a territory dominated by lawlessness and injustice.

When a shipment of heroin disappears between Italy and New York, a small-time pimp in Milan is framed for the theft. Two professional hitmen are dispatched from New York to find him, but the real thieves want to get rid of him before the New York killers get to him to eliminate any chance of them finding out he's the wrong man.

One dark night during the early phases of WWII, the Italian Royal Navy submarine Cappellini sinks an armed merchant ship sailing with lights out. At that moment, its commander Salvatore Todaro makes a decision that was destined to go down in history: to save the 26 shipwrecked Belgians who otherwise would have drowned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and disembark them at the nearest safe harbor. To make room for them on board his submarine, he is forced to navigate on the surface of the water for three days, visible to the enemy forces and endangering his life and that of his men.

After the liberation of Auschwitz, an Italian prisoner of War begins a torturous voyage home to Turin, through a Europe caught between war and peace.

A street priest struggling to save his church learns his late uncle left him a small business that could turn his fortune around: he'll soon realize that said business is in fact... a brothel!

On the night before retirement, police lieutenant Amore is called to investigate the off-duty death of his longtime partner, who fell prey of an illegal scheme Amore himself was secretly part of.

Nothing - not her father, not the church - can stop unruly Angela from being with her childhood best friend turned great love, Sara. Based on a true story, Viola di Mare, presents a uniquely engaging portrait of family, community and gender roles in a 19th century Italian village.

The "Bulldozer", a former football star, is now working as a fisherman. As a group of street-people arranges a football match against the local Armybase, he is asked to be their trainer. His boat was damaged by a submarine and he currently has no work, so he agrees.

Professor Paris Catalano visits Venice, to investigate the last known appearance of the famous vampire Nosferatu during the carnival of 1786.

Glaucus, a demobilized centurion returns home to Pompeii to find his father murdered by a gang of black-hooded Christian robbers that terrorizes the city and he decides to investigate the matter while the nearby volcano threatens to erupt.

Secrets, rumors and betrayals surround the upcoming marriage between a young dissolute man and virtuous woman of the French aristocracy.

1982. French actress Eddie is on the verge of collapse and travels to Rome accompanied by her loyal makeup artist, Valentina, to shoot a science-fiction film – a film that could be her last one.

In the secret forests of Northern Italy, a dwindling group of joyful old men and their faithful dogs search for the world’s most expensive ingredient, the white Alba truffle. Their stories form a real-life fairy tale that celebrates human passion in a fragile land that seems forgotten in time.

One of the most popular saints of all time, St. Philip Neri was widely known for his great charity, deep prayer life, and tremendous humor. Hoping to join St. Ignatius of Loyola's new order of Jesuits and be a missionary to India, Philip was instead guided by Providence to seek out the poor and abandoned youth of Rome to catechize them in the faith and help them find a better life. He became the founder of the religious congregation, the Oratory, that worked with the youth and also labored to re-evangelize a decadent Rome.

An allegedly insane woman is allowed to finally leave the madhouse to see if she is capable of functioning normally…

A couple is desperately looking to conceive a child and moves to Spain to get the help of a renowned doctor. Their plans change after they meet an apparently perfect girl that volunteers to carry on the pregnancy in their place.

A famous surgeon earns enormous amounts of money by speculating on patients, although he is generally considered a great man and an excellent doctor. Only one of his colleagues rebels against the situation and tries to reveal the truth. But during a dramatic operation, the famous surgeon forces him to turn accomplice and the doctor must keep quiet. Not for long, however.

Two soldiers from opposite sides get stuck between the front lines in the same trench. The UN is asked to free them and both sides agree on a ceasefire, but will they stick to it?

Master gunslinger Sabata arrives in Hobsonville, a town completely owned by McIntock, a robber baron who is taxing the inhabitants for the cost of future improvements to the town. Or that's what McIntock says he'll do with the money...

A tremendous congestion hits the Rome highway ring. The biggest traffic jam ever seen lasts more than 36 hours. At the beginning the people blocked in their cars react normally. But as more time passes, the more we witness personal dramas, hysteric reactions and other grotesque situations. All the episodes are linked as if in a single plot. Cars and their hosts are a microcosm of stories part of a larger universe: the congestion.

Giuliano Gemma stars as a cool, cocky mercenary enlisted by a sheriff to infiltrate a ruthless gang of outlaws. Ennio Morricone provided the score to this early spaghetti western hit.

A love story situated in the Himalayas. A Buddhist monk can't choose between life and the way of the Buddha.

Diabolik narrowly escapes Inspector Ginko's latest trap, leaving his partner in crime Eva Kant behind. Furious, Eva offers Ginko her help in capturing him, but the former has to face first the return of an old flame of his, noblewoman Altea.

After serving prison time for a juvenile offense, Freddo gathers his old buddies Libano and Dandi and embarks on a crime spree that makes the trio the most powerful gangsters in Rome. Libano loves their new status, and seeks to spread their influence throughout the underworld, while the other two pursue more fleshly desires. For decades, their gang perpetrates extravagant crimes, until paranoia threatens to split the friends apart.

She is Mia, 36 years old, an accomplished and independent gynecologist. Averse to stable relationships, she is used to experiencing love as something to be consumed and left behind. She loves to experiment, to change, and to remain unattached. While her professional life is orderly and schematic, she seeks the exact opposite in her private life: new emotions, encounters without promises, and stories that demand no future. He is Leo, 26 years old, a poet by nature. Averse to social media, he is in love with music and authentic things, possessing a vision of love that seems to belong to another era. Their meeting happens almost by chance in a bar, interrupting an ordinary date. From there, an overwhelming, unconventional relationship takes shape—built on passion, complicity, and shared moments. But as is often the case, falling in love is only the beginning. When reality breaks in, bringing with it a weight of responsibilities, fears, and questions, everything changes.

Following her husband's death, a widow decides to remarry his former business partner. When the woman's daughter returns home for a break from her college studies, she begins to suspect her stepfather's fidelity. Upon investigation, she discovers that he is having an affair with another woman, who is found dead shortly thereafter.

On the Adriatic Riviera the destinies of a variety of characters cross. A piano player is the lover of a rich woman who wants him to become a killer, a call girl is looking for her true love, two workers want to marry two old billionaires.

Depiction of the life of St. Anthony, beginning with his initial calling to the priesthood as a young Portugese nobleman, and following him as he becomes a Franciscan monk and preaches across Africa and Europe.

After World War II, Anita, a young survivor of Auschwitz, becomes involved in an intense and passionate affair that almost shatters her until she gains the strength to start a new life.

When a kidnapping victim turns up alive after fifteen years, a profiler and a private investigator try to piece together the mystery.

Two brothers part company only to be reunited when one is hired to stop a thief who turns out to be his sibling.

John Lackland seizes the English throne, believing the rightful ruler, his brother Richard the Lionheart, to be dead. When he learns that Richard is being held captive by the German emperor and can be ransomed for a large sum of money, he refuses to pay and orders the messengers, including Sir Henry of Nottingham, to be killed. Sir Henry escapes to Sherwood Forest, which belongs to his estates. There he joins forces with a group of Anglo-Saxons and fights under the name Robin Hood against the regime of the king's traitors...

Two convicts escape from prison and evade the law by taking hostage the middle-class family of a doctor. One of the jailbirds calls the local television station, requesting that they broadcast his demand for a plane so they can escape the country. The television director and his crew show up to film the hostage crisis, and then things get progressively more bizarre and satirical. Not content with the living drama, he directs everyone's actions to make the event more newsworthy.

A Mafia boss is enraged when he is suspected of smuggling a heroin shipment into San Francisco. He dispatches his nephew, a hotshot Anglo-Sicilian lawyer, to identify the real culprit. The lawyer also enlists the aid of his best friend, a grand prix driver with an adventurous streak.

Love Divine is a choral journey into romantic relationships, exploring the emotional destinies of interconnected lives. With an ironic, light tone tinged with bitterness, it portrays a humanity caught in the chaos of love. Each character is a knot in an intricate weave shaped by the capricious God of Love, while Ovid, the eternal poet, guides us from ancient Rome into the present.

Meursault is a man who feels utterly isolated from everyone and everything around him. This alienation results in sudden, inexplicable bursts of violence, culminating in murder.

Bull Webster is a taxi driver with some work problems on his hands: the Spider Corporation, a giant financial holding company, has decided to buy out his taxi co-operative in order to make it go bankrupt and purchase its land at a low cost.

The newly elected Pope suffers a panic attack just as he is about to greet the faithful who have gathered to see him. His advisors, unable to convince him he is the right man for the job, call on a renowned therapist who also happens to be an atheist. But the Pope's fear of his newfound responsibility is one he must face alone. Winner Best Film at the Italian Golden Globes.

El Chuncho's bandits rob arms from a train, intending to sell the weapons to Elias' revolutionaries. They are helped by one of the passengers, Bill Tate, and allow him to join them, unware of his true intentions.

Still reeling from the painful breakup of his marriage to screen siren Rita Hayworth, filmmaker Orson Welles makes his way to Rome, where he gets pulled into a tangled political plot involving murder and mysterious motives. A beautiful actress proves a tempting distraction. But if they want to stay alive, Welles and his young Italian driver need to stay focused.

The relationships between a veteran marshal, his bride-to-be, a rookie and his fiancée are severely tested when the young carabiniere is temporarily sent to a distant town.

Stefano is a shy and sensitive teenager who has just completed his studies in Switzerland and is considering becoming a monk. But his father, a rich Milanese publisher, who had the ambition to see his son succeed him, refuses and takes him on a cruise with a young woman to take this idea out of his mind...

Checco is 39 and lived his entire life with his parents. He loves his job where he does nothing the whole day, until something happens that will change his behavior and his life forever...

Giulia and Carlo have been happy together for three years, but Giulia's announcement that she is pregnant sends him into a secret panic. Terrified at his imminent entry into the adult world of irreversible responsibilities, Carlo finds himself tempted by a bewitching 18-year-old girl, Francesca, whom he meets by chance at a wedding. The possibility of one last youthful crazy fling before the impending prison of parenthood proves to be too attractive to resist.

A legendary poker playing outlaw, Triggerman, arrives to town for the wildest gambling tournament this side of the west. As the tournament begins he'll get caught up in a violent showdown as bandits try to cheat their way to the finals. With his hand on the trigger this outlaw won't let anything come between him and his winning hand.

Born with a serious eye condition that eventually leads to his blindness, Bocelli nevertheless rises above the challenges, driven by great ambitions towards his passion. The silent pursuit of his daily mission continues.

A young woman abducts a doctor whom she holds responsible for the death of her boyfriend and subjects him to various sexual torture acts.

Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life.

Davide Lancia, a wealthy forty-year-old with refined tastes and a weakness for all things beautiful, from women to art, owes his fortune to being the son of one of Rome's most powerful and unscrupulous builders. To spur him on, his father offers him the opportunity to finally prove himself a worthy heir to his empire: he must demolish a run-down building and build a luxury residence in its place. A deal Davide cannot refuse. However, a tenant still lives in the building who refuses to leave her apartment: Ursula, a blind, beautiful, determined, and feisty woman. His encounter with Ursula will upend Davide's plans and allow him to embrace a new way of living and seeing things.

The origin story of one of Italy's greatest rock stars, Gianna Nannini, who chased her dream despite obstacles from her family and the music industry.

The true story of the life of Gavino Ledda, the son of a Sardinian shepherd, and how he managed to escape his harsh, almost barbaric existence by slowly educating himself, despite violent opposition from his brutal father.

A pimp with no other means to provide for himself finds his life spiralling out of control when his prostitute is sent to prison.

A sex worker, a hired killer, and a movie crew cross paths in a Venice hotel where human meat is on the menu.

A young man, Peter, returns to Austria in search of his heritage. There he visits the castle of an ancestor, a sadistic Baron who was cursed to a violent death by a witch whom the Baron had burned at the stake. Peter reads aloud the incantation that causes Baron Blood to return and continue his murderous tortures.

Alex Belli is a 37 year old advertising executive whose fiancée Elena has just left him, and who is having difficulty at work trying to think of a good advertising campaign for a new Japanese product. Niki is a bubbly 17 year old student. She has three best friends with whom she shares all her problems, and an annoying ex-boyfriend Fabio who is set on getting her back, but Niki's not interested. One day on his way to work, Alex collides with Niki on a city street. They soon begin a romance, despite their 20-year age gap.

In this melange of characters and events from separate mythological stories, Hercules, demigod and superman, arrives in the ancient Greek kingdom of Iolcus to tutor Iphitus, son of king Pelias; immediately on arrival, he falls in love with the king's delectable, briefly clad daughter Iole. Before he can win her, he must succeed in a series of quests, in the course of which he teams up with Jason, true heir of Iolcus, whom he accompanies on the famous voyage of the Argonauts.

She hates men, he hates complications - but after one passionate night ties them together, these two irreconcilable opposites are forced to coexist... working at the same school, with a baby on the way! Can a staunch feminist and an oblivious chauvinist find common ground?

In 1938 a group of fascists led by the general Gaetano Maria Barbagli decides to invade the planet of Mars.

Based on the infamous novel by Leopold Sacher-Masoch this fine film follows the perverted passions of a young couple as Severin watches the beautiful Wanda writhing naked amongst furs. His disturbing peeping tomism triggers off a whirlpool of emotions due to a childhood episode which punishes voyeurism with pain.