Discoveries from Italy World Cinema

A documentary on the history of Italy's peplum genre.

An Ancient Mayan curse is awakened in the ancient temples in Mexico, and people are killed in strange and gory ways by an invisible force.

Episodes centering on different aspects of early-1970s Italian life, set in a television studio, a factory, a university, and a Catholic parish.

The nun tells the priest about her past and then a long flashback begins...

A documentary about the Italian cinema as art form and industry.

Screen adapatation of Mozart's greatest opera. Don Giovanni, the infamous womanizer, makes one conquest after another until the ghost of Donna Anna's father, the Commendatore, (whom Giovanni killed) makes his appearance. He offers Giovanni one last chance to repent for his multitudinious improprieties. He will not change his ways So, he is sucked down into hell by evil spirits. High drama, hysterical comedy, magnificent music!

Enrichetta, a young peasant girl who lives in a little village, joins Silver Boy as a dancer.

An orphan, raised by a foreign tribe, becomes a warrior queen and falls in love with the leader of her enemies.

A shipwreck strands a modern Italian businessman on a desert island. Like Robinson Crusoe he must find a way to return to civilization; unlike him--he's a 20th-century man, a totally different case.

A committed environmentalist whose hyperfixation with everything that's wrong with the world is taking a toll on his marriage tries a pill that reduces human brain capacity from the usual 20% to a mere 2%. Which puts him on a par with your typical man on the street.

A lawyer with a deplorable habit; a sitter struggling with her disturbing new job; a childhood friend who's hiding something; a chef with an unspeakable desire; a psychologist haunted by a tow truck... In each segment, a normal person suffers extremely weird, disturbing and paradoxical situations. These situations may seem incredible, yet they happen.

Bertone is a moderately honest homicide cop. Unfortunately, the court system is so inept and corrupt that many more-or-less honest policemen have begun taking the law into their own hands. Between his efforts to thwart the growth of crime and to control his vengeful co-workers, homicide-chief Bertone has his hands full

A retired professor in his seventies enjoys a quiet, carefree life – until his daughter, amid a marital crisis, arrives with her two unruly children. As his peaceful routine unravels, he’s drawn into the chaos of family and unexpected emotions. Through this upheaval, he rediscovers the beauty and pain of love, and the deep human need to connect—despite the cost.

Michael is the younger son of a middle-class family, a strong-willed and free-thinking fellow, who is off in some distant country fighting for a revolutionary cause. Everyone in the family writes to him, describing the events of their lives, as they drift into a kind of conventionality which would perhaps have horrified them earlier. Only Michael’s girlfriend Mara, the mother of his child, retains her independence, even though it is through the help of Michael’s increasingly conventional friends and family that she survives.

An old prince lives in his ancient palace in Rome together with the ghosts of his ancestors. For years he has proudly rejected huge offers by a real estate group seeking to buy the palace and build a department store in its place, but when he suddenly dies his nephew signs the deal. The palace seems lost, but the ghosts forge a plan to save it from destruction.

Scientists try to prevent a collision between Earth and a planet that is heading for it.

After dying in a car accident, wealthy shoe industrialist Carlo Bacchi finds himself in the afterlife, where he is condemned to hell for having committed evil while alive. Defending himself against the accusation in an impassioned plea, however, he succeeds in obtaining to return to earth for a few hours to make reparation for the evil he committed and, above all, for the bad deed that caused Amedeo Santini's suicide attempt. The affair will lead him to make a risky but happy choice.

Peppino, a slow-witted local villager of the Italian resort town of Amalfi, is bribed to impersonate famed rock and roll star Adriano Celentano for autographs and personal appearances. While Celentano tries to romance Emanuela Mazzolani, the daughter of a well-to-do resident who dissaproves of the union between his daughter and the man he thinks of as a "punk", Peppino, unaware of the true nature of his job to impersonate Celentano, tries to deal with his girlfriend's newborn baby which gets switched around between him and Celentano.

A court takes 9-year-old Mario away from his abusive family and entrusts him to a childless couple. For the three of them, living together is difficult and often painful, since they come from two different worlds. To cope with loneliness and displacement, Mario creates his own world, where he meets Schad Sky, an imaginary friend.

Two Sicilian shopowners who live in Rome pick up some beatnik hitchhikers and the group gate-crashes their seaside villa. In the meantime the two men's wives smell something fishy going on and go to the villa themselves. To make things worse the place is also invaded by three prison fugitives who terrorize the lot.

Two strongmen set out to hunt down a murderous sea monster. Their ship is wrecked and they end up in the Holy Land where Hercules is assumed to be Samson who is a wanted man. The two team up to survive.

A boy and a girl fall in love but their fathers take a strong dislike to each other, clashing repeatedly during the preparations for the upcoming marriage.

Based on director Aureliano Amadei's 2003 experiences in Iraq, 20 Cigarettes is the gripping story of a twenty-eight year old anarchist and anti-war activist who receives an offer to fly to Iraq as assistant director on a film about the Italian military peace mission.

408 AD. The Visigoths led by Alaric invade northern Italy. At Ravenna, they have to battle, and they are stopped by the power of the Roman legions and the cunning of the emperor's sister, Galla Placidia. As the Goths lose many warriors in the cruel battle, Alaric vows bloody revenge.

A gang of ruthless thugs intent on robbery prey upon a seemingly harmless elderly couple, Vittorio and Sara. The simple plan turns into a terrifying nightmare, as Vittorio's antique clock collection mysteriously turns back time. Now the hunters become the hunted and the old couple becomes a vengeful, malevolent force.

Gianni is a political man with a good career waiting for him. Angela is his wife and she fakes an assault and a rape in a cinema. Eva is Gianni's lover and Angela's friend. Gianni and Eva decide to use the pretext of the assault to kill Angela. Later on Angela is blackmailed by a man who was present at her act. In the background there are Rosy, her maid always present, and a puzzling man who appears and disappears and makes strange phone calls.

Set in Norway and has a crack team of Allies sent to blow up an underground Nazi factory where the Germans have taken a crashed Spitfire that contains a new radar system that the krauts want to copy.

An experienced truck-driver is forced to become assistant to a young Sicilian driver. The Beast, the truck they drive around Europe, becomes their ground for mutual respect and trust.

A college student studying for an upcoming test attempts to calm his frazzled nerves by taking drugs, and experiences a series of vivid, erotic hallucinations. When a beautiful woman appears to teach him the secrets of sexual ecstasy, he begins to fear that he will lose her forever once the effects of the drug wear off.

The newly appointed head of a censorship board uses his uncompromising stance against everything "immoral" – from nudity in movies to nightclubs – to hide a rather unseemly double life.

The king of a secret modern-time Medieval kingdom leaves his throne in inheritance to his son, who struggles to lead the kingdom in fight for its independence from the Italian state.

A man struggles to support his family while remaining true to his ideals in this drama set in Europe during the 1930s. Orfeo Mancini and his wife Nella are a pair of working-class Italians who years ago swore allegiance to the Communist party. With Mussolini on the rise, Orfeo and Nella come to the conclusion that they are no longer welcome in their native land, and they decide to pull up stakes and move to America with their two children. As a result of some confusion en route, the Mancinis end up in Marseilles rather than the United States; needing work, Orfeo takes a job working as a manual laborer for a wealthy landowner. This requires a serious amount of pride-swallowing on Orfeo's part, since his new boss is an Italian expatriate who once courted Nella. The situation becomes all the more difficult for Orfeo when his employer throws his allegiances behind the growing fascist movement.

Dante arrives at the castle of the recently deceased Marquis Zanetti to sell a book which contains a prophecy that the death of nine members of the Zanetti family will reveal a hidden treasure.

Arturo Meraviglia is a struggling impresario who has to take care of Gioele and Rebecca, two children "inherited" by an old uncle. When he realizes that little Gioele has superpowers, his luck changes.

An illustrious group of German industrialists plot to overthrow Hitler by negotiating a peace treaty with England. Disgraced, but dedicated Nazi officer Colonel Werner von Uhland is assigned by his superiors to ferret out these deceitful dissidents and stop them before it's too late. von Uhland recruits a bunch of beautiful women to seduce these traitors and undermine their conspiracy

A woman and her lover murder her husband, a doctor. Soon, however, strange things start happening, and they wonder if they really killed him, or if he is coming back from the dead to haunt them.

The story of a group of Sicilian miners and their families decide to illegally cross the border to France and their hardships.

In a near future, due to the effects of an uncompromising law on the eco-sustainability of supports, paper has become a rare item, a luxury possession, controlled by the "Big Z": Zimurgh Corporation.

A Roman nobleman, Horatius leads an imperial legion during the long and bloody war between the Romans and the Albans. A desperate arrangement is agreed on how to settle the war. Three valiant brothers are chosen from each side to fight one last fierce and bloody duel...

Once upon a time, the great soprano Sofia Mayer conquered the world with her voice, her beauty and the legend she carefully built around herself. Now only the legend remains — the diva herself hasn't performed for years, nor been seen in the glittering circles of society she once dominated. But the woman who fascinated and thrilled the world for so long would like to crown her career with one more triumph. And she'll use every dirty trick she knows to achieve it.

Four comedic shorts explore quirky relationships and misadventures: a teenage girl's journey home, a self-serving babysitter, a husband confronting infidelity, and a wealthy woman's drunken escapades with her butler.

Reg Park returns to his antics of old as the man of iron in HERCULES THE AVENGER. The Son of Jove undertakes another journey into the nether realms battling zombies and monsters in order to rescue his son, allowing goddess Gia an opportunity to place her own slacker son in Hercules' sandals. There's something for everyone: ghouls, dragons, sweating men and girls in skimpy outfits.

After an introduction consisting of a series of close-ups of Totò, the anthology presents clips from films performed by the late comedian actor, collected in chapters.

A detective gets involved with the beautiful daughter of an old friend. The daughter turns out to be a jewel thief, who in turn gets the detective involved in a caper in Austria.

A beautiful fugitive draws a shy film buff out of his shell while she hides in the museum — the cavernous interiors of the Mole Antonelliana in Turin, Italy — where he works as night watchman.

Rome, Esquilino, summer. Rossella returns to Rome after years of absence and returns to her home, rented to her friend Salvatore, the set designer. The woman is gripped by an evident depression and wanders around the city that she does not recognize and that no longer recognizes her. People have changed and Rossella finds no one capable of answering the obsessive question that has plagued her for some time: "How can I disappear?"

Ambulance-chasing lawyers takes on the case of a convicted murderer who, just being released after doing 27 years in jail, claims he was innocent.

Maria and Paul love them, but they are very young and, moreover, Maria is the daughter of the municipal sweeper while Paul is the lawyer Bonelli, vice mayor and head of the opposition. To complicate the story there is the reconstruction of a hermitage destroyed during the war. Reconstruction would take the view of the Paseroni villa, big industrial and political traffic. Bonelli's lawyer, a great speaker, becomes a mayor for the death of his predecessor and is bought by Paseroni, while rejecting the love of Paul and Mary for social differences and why Paul should stay behind Doddy Paseroni. At this point, Paul and Mary flee to kill, just as Bonelli has to hold a talk on the radio for the inauguration of Paseroni's villa ...

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.

The young manager of a small television station loses his sight following an accident. When he buys her back, thanks to a new accident, he discovers that his wife is cheating on him, that his best friend has sold the television and that the girl he was falling in love with is only an investigator of the insurance company.

Mary Magdalene, a notorious harlot, must choose between her lascivious lifestyle and the love and affection of her decent-minded brother.

Documentary about strange or grotesque things around the world: the sacred city of Benares, India, where old men go to die and be cremated; an american tourist in Hong-Kong, who buys a "baby-prostitute"; many animals having sex; the celebration in honor of a totem with the shape of a penis, in Japan; topless and prostitution places; an african tribe in which the men have gigantic male organs; a massage parlour in Thailand; snakes being eaten almost alive; hunting and safaris in Africa; a ranger being eaten by an alligator, in Florida; a missionary priest being eaten by indians; the betting clubs and strip-tease joints in Las Vegas; and much more.

Countess Elena marries the charming Guido Rambaldi, only for him to be seduced by dancer Nara during their Venice honeymoon.

The Puppies live in Soffio, better known as the Land of Wind: a small town where everything runs on wind power. The evil Crow Witch wants to take possession of the "Whirling Windmill" that generates the wind, thus taking control of the town. Will her infernal machines be enough to defeat the Puppies?

During the latter years of the reign of the tyrannical Roman emperor Nero, Marcus Vinicius, one of Nero's officers, falls in love with a young Christian named Lygia, attempting to enslave her. Lygia's protector, the noble and burly Ursus, works to save her from Vinicius' clutches. Pursuing Lygia, Vinicius finds himself at a catacomb prayer meeting led by the apostle Peter and finds his conscience stirring-- just as Nero orders Rome burned. A landmark in epic film, Enrico Guazzoni’s grand-scale masterpiece laid the foundations for what colossal Italian spectacles would become. The film had tremendous influence on Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914) and D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916).

Italian comedy film in three segments

In this black comedy drama, we meet a seemingly perfect family consisting of Olivia, Alexander and their daughter Agata. With the arrival of 25-year-old Julian in their home, their lives are turned upside down and their dysfunctional relationships are revealed. Redemption through humour explores the theme of emotionally drained elites and places it in the context of contemporary social issues.

A beautiful, wealthy widow leaves New York to find herself a husband in the Italian village in which she was born. After many tries she...chooses the village blacksmith.