Discoveries from Italy World Cinema

Following a twinning between the national fire brigade and the special forces of the Canadian firefighters, Captain Carter arrives in Rome.

Alex, a high-school boy fond of rock and punk music, falls in love with Adelaide, who shares his feelings but doesn't want to get too involved because she will soon leave for studying in America. Alex gets relief in music and his friend Martino who leads what looks to him as a more complete life.

The lovely Maria Teresa is unhappily married with the impotent lawyer Marcello. Maria Teresa's marriage is contrasted by the passionate Valeria, who is killed during a chase. Is Valeria's husband the murderer? Maria Teresa helps him..

Fleeing from his enemies in the Catholic Church, the free thinking philosopher, poet and scientist Giordano Bruno has found some protection in Venice. But the Roman Inquisition, fearing his influence in Europe, wants to bring him on trial for 'heresy'.

Mirko and Manolo are best friends and live in the suburbs of Rome. They both live in poor conditions with their single parents, are still in school and struggle with occasional odd jobs to make ends meet. Together they share dreams of women, of sex and money, of a better life to come. Then, after killing a man in a hit-and-run one night, they get involved with the local mafia and their lives change dramatically.

A sanitary battalion of Italian Army is sent to Sorman oasis in Lybia during the Africa campaign in 1940. Soon an Italian missionary, living nearby, succeed to transform the occupation by Italian Army in a kind of humanitarian mission. In fact all the battalion is involved to help the local population. The war anyway goes on with no regards to human feelings. The "glorious" Fascist campaign is going to became a fast retreat.

A young journalist buys a used typewriter and notices some text still legible on the ribbon; he reconstructs the story of a scientist who discovered that some types of terrain have the power to revive the dead.

When her daughter vanishes, Dawna takes it upon herself to locate her.

A lone rider comes across a dying soldier, the victim of an Indian attack, who gives him a paper authorizing the payment of $150,000 to the U.S. Army. The rider gathers some colleagues who disguise themselves as soldiers and who take the paper to a bank. They get the money but a shoot-out occurs, an old woman is killed, and the gang acrimoniously splits up. Later some members of the gang meet up with some real U.S. Cavalry soldiers and together they must fight off new Indian attacks.

The young Luca grew up with his uncle Augusto, owner of a shoe store. The latter, determined to "start" the clumsy nephew sexually, takes him to a brothel in Florence and throws him into the arms of the stupendous prostitute Nerina, of whom Luca falls hopelessly in love.

Lorenzo known as Ghandi and Elena met at 18 during a vacation through Nevada and ended up doing the classic madness: they got married in Las Vegas. A few hours later everyone was going their own way, putting the incident behind them (or at least that's what Elena thinks). Twenty years later Elena is about to marry a very rich and brilliant man, but her best friend Sara, a lawyer, informs her that, being technically still married to Lorenzo, she must first dissolve that bond or she will be accused of bigamy. Elena and Lorenzo must therefore return to Las Vegas and obtain a divorce decree in a few days. If they really want to.

Mario Gastaldi, a lawyer with no clients and no money, agrees to be a negotiator in a deal on stolen paintings, between the boss Peseti and the engineer Farnese, who plots kidnappings unsuspectedly. After he cashed from Farnese three hundred millions of lire to deliver to Peseti, Mario lets money be robbed by four pickpockets, which he is naturally in cahoots with and which he will share out it with. Money cannot be used since it comes from a kidnapping and it was marked. The lawyer will be able to make the boss get arrested.

A Sardinian fisherman has promised the moon to the woman he loves. And Sardinian men always keep their promises.

Nico Palmieri is a police inspector who battles a criminal gang terrorizing a sleepy Italian town, extorting cash from the local merchants. With the threat of violence, no one dares to act, except for a restaurant owner who is forced by Palmieri to tell the truth.

Dan Hogan and his gang have held up a bank for $100,000 in gold bars. They meet up at Jackal's Ranch, a weigh station for stage coaches. While waiting for the gold to arrive they encounter a stranger, John Webb, who wants half the gold in exchange for guiding them safely to Mexico. Reluctantly, Dan agrees and they set across the brutal desert for a race to the border with the Rangers hot on their tail. Is John who he says he is? Is he really after the gold or does he have an ulterior motive?

Piedmont (Italy), nineteenth century. In Turin, the priest Don Bosco, a man from a humble farming family, he gave himself totally and passionately to the task of collecting from the streets to marginalized children and care for them. Not only out of poverty, ignorance and social distress, but it got for the first time, to feel loved. He fought with extraordinary faith and tenacity to overcome obstacles and snares that both the civilian and ecclesiastical authorities, they put in their path to prevent him from completing his goal: the founding of the Congregation of the Salesians, which would guarantee the future of their children .

Lando Buzzanca plays a man desperate to father a male heir. However, his wife (Roseanne Podesta) is apparently barren. They decide to use a surrogate mother, which, since this was in the days before artificial insemination, means Buzzanca will have to impregnate the surrogate the "old-fashioned" way. After a mishap involving a VERY unattractive but fertile widow, Buzzanca sets his sights on young girl (Gloria Guida) at an orphanage for unwed mothers (who has already given an illegitimate child up for adoption). They hire her as a maid, but she is under the impression they're going to adopt her, leading to some quasi-incestual misunderstandings...

A former policeman turns full-time robber and goes on a downward spiral of crime in 1970s Rome.

In a small italian town everyone's waiting for the event of the year: the living chess game with a near town.

Four different directors present lighthearted stories about married Italian couples and their dilemmas with jealousy, sex and love. Segment 1: Scandaloso / The Scandal (Franco Rossi) Segment 2: Peccato nel poeriggio / Sin in the Afternoon (Elio Petri) Segment 3: La sospirosa / The Victim (Luciano Salce) Segment 4: Gente moderna / Modern People (Mario Monicelli)

Based on the story of real life Sardinian bandit Graziano Mesina.

Ivan and Chiara meet on a Sicilian island to prepare the wedding for Ivan’s brother and Chiara’s best friend. Despite the fact that Ivan is determined not to repeat the failure of his last relationship and Chiara does not want to jeopardise her marriage, the two fall in love with each other. They resolve to live their relationship for only a few days and then break it off when the wedding guests arrive on the island. But can love be controlled? Or is it love that controls us?

During the brutal era of the military government, an innocent tourist manager is accused of being a member of the illegal resistance movement.

A group of people visit a weird old man who is a student of the black arts. The man lives in an ancient, cursed castle. Soon people in the group start being killed off.

The film's theme is four episodes that offer the public a glimpse into the lives of rich and poor families in Italy in the 1960s.

The inmate Proietti, nicknamed "Er Soffia", getting out of prison. There is the Roman brigadier Vasco Sacchetti, an agent of the narcotics and his old friend who, to celebrate his freedom, invites him to eat fish at Fiumicino.

Lucita has been locked away in a convent by her family in order to keep her away from her lover, Esteban. The pair make plans to elope, but Esteban is accused of heresy before Lucita can escape. Hiding in the convent, Esteban discovers the horrifying depravity of the covent's abbess, Sister Incarnation. Can Esteban rescue his love from this madhouse before the inquisitor discovers what is going on and has everyone executed?

Lodo is twenty years old and lives the difficulties of his age, between a difficult relationship with his father and the attempt to conquer Giulia, his roommate with whom he is madly in love. He performs with the MOB, an indie band, in a legendary Roman club: the Morrison. One day, by chance, Lodo's path crosses that of Libero Ferri, a former rock star with a stalemate career, who tries to find success but ends up withdrawing more and more in himself, neglecting his beautiful wife Luna and living isolated in his luxurious villa full of memories. Between dreams, failures, friendship, tormented loves and curious characters, their meeting will become a mutual stimulus to move forward, but at times also a difficult comparison between generations and very different ways of being.

When Francesco returns home with the assumption that his father's wealth will be there to keep him content, he discovers that his father has lost everything to a German countess while gambling.

A Sicilian worker, a member of the internal commission in a factory in Bergamasco, believes he has won it over the owner because he has obtained important improvements, but the astute employer sells the company to a multinational company.

A maniac on the loose is committing savage acts of slaughter, and one survivor may be the only key to unmasking the serial slayer known as the Half-Moon Killer. The mysterious half-moon lockets he leaves with his victims could be the only key to unraveling his sinister motives, but will that be enough before he completes his ice-cold plot to claim his intended seven victims?

A biographical feature on the Italian literary giant, Gabriele D'Annunzio. Set in late 19th century Italy and France when the artistic style, Decadentismo, was beginning to take shape, the film focuses on D'Annunzio's life when he was already an established poet and journalist in Rome. A staunch opponent of democracy and commoners, he searches for passion and pleasure among the wealthy and noble. One such noblewoman Elvira Fraternali Leoni, serves as the muse for his first novel - The Pleasure (Il Piacere).

A gang of cattle thieves rescue a criminal from the gallows, and later rob a stagecoach loaded with gold. When they get the loot, he is betrayed and left dying in the middle of the desert. In the escape they reach a mysterious ghost town, where they perceive there is something strange about ...

Two episodes. The 1st is 'Amore impossibile' (Impossible love). Giulio is a comic book draftsman. He is passing through a creativity depressed period. One day his editor makes him meet a blond nice girl. Immediately Giulio fall in love and starts to draw his impossible love story into a new comic book. The 2nd is 'Quello dal basco rosso' (the one with the red beret). Sandro, a mature man, meets one of his former girlfriend and her daughter Daniela. Daniela couldn't have sex with her boyfriend because of a childhood remembrance. In fact she always remember her mother having sex with a man wearing a red beret. She discovers that man is Sandro, makes love with him and soon recovers from her obsession.

Missing the train is very bad. Seeing it leave with your children and those of your friends you had to accompany on vacation is a whole other story ... that of the crazy pursuit from Turin to Sicily of a father and grandfather as different as they are unreliable.

An Italian submarine captain tries to navigate his sub through enemy waters while being stalked by a British warship. They both make it to the neutral port of Tangiers where they agree a truce.

To honor her best friend's last wish, a young woman with severe anxiety confronts her greatest fears to try and reclaim her life — and perhaps find love.

A psychic finds herself tapping into the "energy" of a deceased phone operator. She also finds that her friends soon begin dying mysteriously. An investigator determines to track down the cause.

A mentally disturbed woman arrives in Rome to find a city fragmented by autocratic law, leftist violence, and her own increasingly unhinged mission to find the most dangerous liaison of all.

A tale of the three funerals for the ashes of Italian writer Luigi Pirandello intertwined with a murder committed by a young Sicilian immigrant boy in 1930s Brooklyn for what is described as a surreal, grotesque, complex narrative.

After a few years in a boarding school for nuns, young and provocative Monica returns to the village, eager to win as many children as possible. All men lose their heads for her. Later her sister, Sabina who runs a pharmacy arrives with her new husband and she can't manage to keep her hands off her new brother-in-law. It succeeds so well that it reduces the entire local soccer team to its knees.

Loosely based upon Jack London's novels, this is a canine adventure set in the wilderness of the far North, amidst gold diggers, outlaws and children-in-distress.

Aliens from a dying world plot to conquer earth by preying on man's superstitions. Bringing two dead scientists back to life, they use their knowledge to re-animate various earth monsters, including the werewolf, Frankenstein's monster, the mummy Tao-Tet, and the vampire Count de Meirhoff.

Mario consigns his girlfriend Licia to a whorehouse for an evening in order to get the photographic goods to blackmail her father with. To get her out of the way, Licia is then consigned to a mental hospital by her father.

At the local cinema, an audience watches a Spaghetti Western matinee. During the film's on-screen climactic duel, a bullet is fired into a patron. With no leads and a theater full of suspects, police investigators lock the doors, put everyone back in their seats, and run the movie again. But will this shot in the dark reveal the real killer?

A brother is cast out from his family, sold in to slavery and then returns years later as a man of power - but shows forgiveness and compassion to his family through the strength of character given to him by God.

A chronological look at the creative life of Luchino Visconti (1906-1976). It examines his theatricality, role in the neorealist movement, use of melodrama, and relation to decadence. It touches on the impact of a fabulously wealthy childhood, his writing for "Cinema," his politics, his work with Renoir, his appreciation of Thomas Mann, and his deep knowledge of literature and the arts. Visconti moves constantly between film and the theater, staging plays provocatively, working with Maria Callas at La Scala, and shooting films in theaters. Clips from his films and interviews with actors, crew members, and critics provide details for this portrait of creativity.

Four friends, former 1968 student protesters who have checked out of politics and struggle to come to terms with the present, try self-criticism to figure out what to do with themselves, only to end up doing what they do best: sinking into endless talk without ever reaching a conclusion.

Cefalonia tells the real story about what happened in September 1943 on the Greek island of Kefalonia (Cefalonia in Italian), when the 12,000 men in the Italian 33rd Acqui Infantry Division, following Italy's surrender to the Allied, refused to put themselves under German command and also refused to surrender their weapons. The local German force, supported by Stuka dive-bombers and additional troops, attacked the Italians and after several days of combat the Italians surrendered, having lost 1,300 men. As punishment, the German High Command ordered that all surviving Italians should be executed. Some 5,000 were executed during a week of killings. A handful were rescued by locals and the Greek guerrilla, while the rest were shipped off as prisoners, whereof 3,000 drowned when their ships hit mines. The film "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" is based on a novel about the Italian occupation of Cefalonia, but the massacre was much toned down in the Hollywood version.

Benoit Jacquot's acclaimed 2002 film of Puccini's opera stars Angela Gheorghiu in the title role, with Roberto Alagna, Ruggero Raimondi and the Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, under Antonio Pappano.

A satire on the American film "The Exorcist," but with an Italian twist.

In New York, an absurd coincidence links the lives of a Yugoslavian hitman, his ex-wife and her new partner, a policeman whose father was a criminal. His code name is "Uncle Vanya". He grew up in Bosnia, an orphan of both parents and, having never met them, he does not know whether he is a Serb, a Croat or a Muslim. A victim of his fate and his past in war-torn Bosnia, he has become a hitman. He would like to stop killing but he can't.

November 2, 1975: Pier Paolo Pasolini is murdered in the outskirts of Rome. The suspect, a 17-year-old hustler, pleads to have acted in self-defense, citing Pasolini's notorious sexual habits as proof. However, many inconsistencies start to undermine his version, pointing to him not having acted alone or even being assaulted in the first place. Was Pasolini also killed for another reason?

When an international casino crime ring is planning a big score at a fixed roulette game, the casino police enlists the help of Jeff Miller, an alcoholic croupier, to nab the bad guys. Jeff is attracted to Laura, a singer at the casino, but she prefers the company of the leader of the thieving casino ring.

In pre-World War II Sicily, just as the fascists come to power, two men fall in love with the same woman. The changes in their country's politics ultimately take all three on a journey across the ocean to New York City.

During the 1800s, Peru's government sends 2 envoys to negotiate peace with the rebellious Incas but a treasure-hunter bandit shoots the Inca ruler and his son, leaving the 2 envoys to take the blame for it.

A chemical analyst and a supermarket clerk strike up a friendship after they are brought together by the death of an elderly woman.

A painter facing a creative block arranges to spend the weekend in the country at his mistress's villa. While staying there, his sanity begins to disintegrate.

How the Italian Fascist Party managed to turn the physical elimination of a political enemy into a test of strength fundamental for the ascent into the totalitarian regime.