Discoveries from Italy World Cinema

A thief caught red-handed tells the landlord a very strange fact that happened to him looking through the keyhole of another apartment where he was stealing.

Bari, a city caught in the relentless economic crisis. Ivo is an agronomist, but the lack of opportunities pushes him to accept a job in the fertile region of Banat in Romania. Clara has just ended a relationship and is about to lose her job at the Bari harbor. Ivo and Clara meet by chance and seem to immediately understand each other. They spend only one night together before Ivo's departure, but that is enough to create a bond and wanting to meet again. When Clara visits him in Romania, they fall in love. But is exile their only way to happiness?

In 1937 the Nazi regime held two exhibitions in Munich: one to stigmatize “Degenerate Art” (which they systematically looted and destroyed) and one, personally curated by Hitler, to glorify “Classic Art”. This immersive new documentary reveals the Nazi’s complicated relationship with classical and modern art, displaying an incredible number of masterpieces by Botticelli, Klee, Matisse, Monet, Chagall, Renoir and Gauguin amongst others, intertwined with human stories from the most infamous period of the twentieth century. A state-of-the-art detective story exploring the Nazis’ obsession with creative expression, Hitler versus Picasso combines history, art and human drama for an unforgettable cinema experience.

A small town in Italy is about to celebrate their patron saint. The city is full of people with different problems. A Communist in existentialist crisis that also must take care of his mentally ill wife. A woman who is tired of her husband's inability to show emotions and therefore more and more often slips into the world of dreams. A perverse butcher engaged in sex with the meat he sells when he's not peeping on young girls. A girl who became pregnant after having sex with her father. In this town a mysterious stranger show up and who turns on several of the inhabitants lives.

Hercules battles an evil sorceress who turns men into werewolves. The mythic duo returns in Prisoner of Evil, where a sorceress seduces Herc and transforms him into a mindless beast. Italian horror master Antonio Margheriti directed this installment of the Hercules legend, a blend of sword-and-sandal fantasy and horror.

This is the story of two completely opposite households: the Pavone are intellectual and bourgeois, the Vismara are proletarian and fascists. They are two tribes sharing the same jungle: Rome. A trivial accident brings these two poles together. The madness of a 25-year old youth will set them on a collision course, discovering the cards to reveal that everyone has a secret. People are never what they seem – but we are all predators in the end.

A ne'er-do-well who's married to a millionnaire realizes his financial trouble might be solved if his wife was dead - and sets out a plot to achieve just that. A remake of Dino Risi's "il vedovo".

Working in the shadows of music stars, a gifted guitarist returns to his hometown and decides to stage a disappearing act in order to propel him to fame.

Sor Clemente escapes the surveillance of his wife and goes to attend a variety show.

Maurizio Merli takes up a familiar role as Commissioner Berni; a cop who puts his life on the line to transport a witness from Corleone to New York City in order to testify against a mob boss on trial for murder. Along the way, Berni and his prisoner face a series of traps set up by the Mafia.

In 2021, an 11-year-old boy named Mattia Piccoli was named Standard-bearer of the Republic by President Sergio Mattarella for "the love and care with which he daily follows his father's illness." This film tells his story and that of his father, Paolo, who, in his early forties, slowly begins to lose pieces of his memory. But just as the world begins to fade, he chooses to stay close to what truly matters, strengthened also by the love of his wife Michela. Together with his son, he embarks on a journey of shared daily life, sudden laughter, and silences that speak.

Primary school teacher Mr. Mombelli, nevertheless satisfied with his life, is driven by his wife to resign and starting a new activity. He invest all his goodwill setting up a footwear little factory.

Two men embarks upon a space race. Their efforts are hampered by aliens who clone the heroes to keep them from exploring further.

After Sarah’s husband Albert dies in a domestic accident, she is given the freedom to move forward with her other lover Max. Soon Max finds something disturbing in Sarah's behaviour, and he begins to question if Sarah isn't the person she says she is? Max then mysteriously disappears, and Sarah’s orderly life is brought into chaos.

An Alsacian Baron massacres the family of a French Duke, and takes his lands and his title. Isabella, the Duke's baby child, escapes the massacre, is raised by gypsies, and comes back twenty years later to exact revenge.

After his sister is kidnapped and murdered, a gunslinger's plans for vengeance involve assassinating two generals to prolong the Civil War.

Donna Sabella accompanies her nephew Raffaele and Lucia on their honeymoon in Rome when he meets two Americans who want to go to Pollena because there seems to be oil in the soil "The bubbles".

Cormack, the lawman most feared by the rugged pioneers at the turn of the century, has a mysterious bond with "Caribou," an outlaw whom he has jailed. When Caribou escapes from prison, he returns to seek revenge.

A shop assistant in a record shop falls in love with a young writer, who loves classical music but can not find a publisher who publishes his first novel.

Fortuna (6 years old) lives with her mother in an anonymous suburb. She spends her time with two playmates, Nicola and Anna, dreaming of being Nancy, an alien princess chased by giants who want to kidnap her and her friends. After a tragic accident happened to Nicola, an obscure secret surfaces in a struggle between reality and imagination, unveiling a horrible truth. A dark fairy tale, based on a true story.

Muscleman fights sea monsters and Amazon warriors, then returns home to find a race of giants living in a valley, into which fellow countrymen are being thrown as punishment for opposing a usurper king and his consort.

Four extraterrestrials, X-1, X-2, X-3 and X-4, arrive on Earth in the early sixties. Here they decide to take on human features to study the terrestrials incognito, but end up getting involved in the Roman "dolce vita".

Gino Quirino aka Manolesta, a thief and a con man, lives on a barge anchored on the Tiber with Bruno, his young son. Gino ends up in the crosshairs of the social worker Dr. Angela De Maria, and he is forced to find an honest job.

Marco, a young Roman reporter, travels to Zaire to carry out a report commissioned by an important naturalistic magazine, but when he arrives in Africa he comes across an illicit drug trafficking.

Based on a real-life mystery in the newspapers after World War I, this conventional, straightforward story is about a poorly-dressed man who is brought into the police station in Turin for stealing flower pots from the cemetery. He is rather brutally interrogated, and then because he has no idea who he is or where he belongs, he is put into an asylum for the mentally disturbed. After his photograph is published in the newspapers, a woman shows up at the institution claiming that he is Professor Canella, her missing and wealthy husband. The news obtains the release of the amnesiac, but his claim is quickly and hotly contested by another family, arguing that the man is an imposter. As a result, his case goes back to court and in the meantime, the "professor" is put in jail. As the courtroom drama continues, there are various clues that suggest whether or not the amnesiac has been accurately identified and by whom.

Set in the fictional country of Heaven Valley, the film is the story of a man, Adam, who following the suspicious death of his wife begins to investigate her murder and in doing so, discovers the involvement of local mafia boss: Denny Richards. Unable to trust the police, corrupt and controlled by Denny, Adam, consumed by anger, summons a demon who offers him superhuman strength and dark powers. The demon follows him during his trip, promising to lead Adam to the door of the murderer if he does everything the demon asks. This unleashes a bloody war that will bring Adam, the demon on his side, against the police department with all its dark allies. The fight begins and it will be extreme!

Notre Dame de Paris tells the story of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bell-ringer of the cathedral of Notre-Dame and of his impossible and tragic love for Esmeralda, a beautiful gypsy. A love condemned by injustice and hypocrisy. Quasimodo forced by his ugliness to look at the world from the top of a tower one day he falls madly in love with Esmeralda who sees dancing and singing on the square in front of the cathedral. But Esmeralda is in love with Febo, the handsome captain of the King's guards. Febo is fiancé of Fiordaliso, a young and rich bourgeois, but the exotic and sensual beauty of the gypsy does not leave indifferent the man who immediately falls in love with her. Even Frollo, the archdeacon of the cathedral, is attracted by the gypsy and spying on the moves of the two lovers in a raptus of jealousy and repressed carnal desire to get rid of the rival stabbing Febo behind.

Adapted from the mock-heroic poem in Roman dialect, tells the misadventures of the young trasteverino Bartolomeo Patacca that, because of the ambition of his woman, is having to train a group of beggars to go fight in defense of Christianity in Vienna, besieged by the Turks.

Two factory workers living in Northern Italy form a romantic connection. The woman, torn between the freedoms of the North and her traditional Sicilian values, slowly allows herself to love...

Undercover cop Nico Giraldi is once again transformed, now as a trucker in a criminal gang.

Insatiable playboy Marco Donati decides to marry his latest flame, the beautiful Francesca. When the news gets into local newspapers, many of his former lovers are annoyed.

Summer Late sixties, Want to sing, Of Sun. Of golden skin from tanning. Of endless beaches. And relaxing baths. For everyone: young and old. Singles and couples. In the endless consumption of flirtation and new knowledge, the musical background goes crazy with the famous screamer. Famous personalities like Lola Falana emerge from famous people. They get confused. They are inserted between these alleged stars. But above all, they have fun like crazy ...

After the death of his father, prince Tristan is living in Cornwall at the court of his uncle, King Marke, who treats him like a son. When the Irish king sends his son Morold over to demand high tax payments, Tristan challenges him to combat. He manages to kill Morold but is very badly injured, and is placed in a boat to be healed by the magic powers of the sea, which takes him across to Ireland.

Three young friends – aspiring film director Roberto, aspiring producer Ben and aspiring comedian Cico – move to Rome looking for a career in a film industry that they discover being well past its heyday.

Two bumbling actors get wrapped up in a scheme to murder a rich man's wife.

A baron, nicknamed Paolo il caldo (Paul the Hot One) because of his womanizing, asks his son, on his deathbed, to leave women alone and only think about work. The son tries hard but only gets into trouble.

In the pre-civil war American south, Emanuelle, a plantation owner's daughter, while outwardly a dainty southern belle, brutally abuses the slaves in her charge. When her fiance is bitten by a snake, he falls for Emanuelle's beautiful African-American maid who's kindness and skill saved his life. Insanely jealous, Emanuelle continues her sadistic behaviour towards her charges, and when her fiance announces he plans to wed the maid, Emanuelle "gives" her to her even more brutal hired men, and her fiance is powerless to stop them. Can Emanuelle learn an important lesson in love before it's too late for everyone?

Two outlaws compete with each other over a treasure map that will lead them to buried gold while one of them is in league with a sadistic priest-turned-crime lord, while a young Native American girl helps both outlaws and plays both sides against each other.

Roberto is a student in a corrupt university where teachers sell exams and only hire friends and relatives.

A high school girl is lured into prostitution by a fashion photographer.

A businessman is wrongly accused and convicted for the murder of his associate.

During the 3rd century B.C. a horde of barbarians are hired by the Phoenian city of Carthage to fight against the Roman empire, but when the city's ruler is unable to fulfill the promised payment made to the mercenaries, they attack the African settlement, where Salammbô --the king's daughter and high priestess of goddess Tanit- tries to settle the matter when the Barbarian leader who has fallen for her steals the sacred veil of Carthage from the temple, without taking into account the evil schemes of a powerful member of the council of wise men.

A police commissioner in a little town in the Italian Venetian province investigates a prostitution ring run by two pensioners; during his investigations he also learns that a former manicurist shacks up with ten students, the prefect's daughter prostitutes to keep her pimp, a famous doctor has sex with his young patients, a headmaster has his eyes on the pupils, a noblewoman organizes orgies in her villa, the local convent is run by a lesbian and his actual girlfriend poses for a hardcore magazine. He wants everything to come out in the open but his superiors try to put obstacles in his way.

Sonny, a New York wise guy, dreams of becoming a feared gangster. He runs errands for the mob and is rewarded by being given the control over Mulberry Street, which is a street that faces a boxing gym.

The secret agent Claus van Dongen is sent to Cape Town to end the activities of the criminal organization Yellow Viper.

The story of Maria Montessori the most famous pedagogue of the world. She spent all her life to make her "metodo" (method) accepted in the archaic Italian school system, while the rest of the world immediately understand the importance of her theories. She was the first Italian Doctor, a famous feminist, a scientist. Her private life was hit by having an illegitimate son and by the Fascism that didn't want to accept completely her theories.

Milan, Nowadays: Fernando, son of Ugo Piazza, is a brilliant criminal defense lawyer whose mother, Nelly, has done everything in her power to raise him different from his father, a deplorable gangster.

The life of Antonio Vivaldi, called "the red priest", his relationship with the world and the Church, his spiritual battles, his love for a woman.

Giovanni, known as "Banana" because of his mania for wearing a Brazil jersey, is a 14-year-old boy trying not to give up on his dreams in a world of frustrated, giving up and courageless people. Out of Competition "Sezione Cinema al parco" Giffoni 2015

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

Teenage problems intertwine during the occupation of a high school in Rome. Silvio—much like his peers desperate to lose his virginity—wants to make his move on the girl he likes, despite her being already his friend's girlfriend and not knowing that her best friend harbors feelings for him—while clashing also with his parents, onetime Sixties radicals who look down on the kids' aimless political commitment.

The violin teacher at the Perugia Conservatory in Italy is loved by his female pupils and the rich ladies in town. Later we learn that he was a great concert soloist and had to give up his career because of his drunkard wife.

Sixteen year old Rocco's two aims in life are to get laid and to see his favorite pop star in concert with his two best friends. When a bullying incident at school forces Rocco to come out to his divorced middle-class parents their liberal leanings are severely tested. Luckily his two friends stand by him and join him in running away from home (in his parents stolen car) to see their favorite singer in concert, followed hot on their heels by his neurotic mother and eccentric gran.

Tina, an old lady, is in town for the wedding of her grandson when a medallion left to her by her late husband disappears. Dissatisfied with the police effort to find it, she sets on the tracks of the thieves herself.

A very unlikely trio join forces in order to rob a bank: an ex-bandit called Smith, now a cheerful reverend, a nomadic artist and a pickpocket. Their plan is successful, however, and the three make off with the money from the bank's vaults, only to find themselves robbed of their newly-acquired wealth by a young schoolmistress.

A man and a woman love each other, but they can’t marry because he’s ashamed of his unjustly incarcerated mother. What’s more, he loses his eyesight in an accident.

In 17th century Spain, the evil, corrupt Don Luis intends to marry his ward, Carmencita, to his stepson, Don Diego. A peasant revolt, fuelled by a plague, complicates matters, as does the arrival of a Masked Avenger.

Kitty, a photographer living in Rome, witnesses the murder of a young woman at the hands of a razor-wielding black-gloved killer. Kitty and her fiancé Alberto go to the police, only to learn that two other witnesses to the crime have been slashed to death.