Italian

short documentary on the production of rayon, shot in Torviscosa (Italy). It portrays the production of this new synthetic fabric in the small town of Torviscosa, entirely built following strict fascist canons.Read More »

In 1970, Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni was asked to return to his roots as a documentarian for this profile of China, fully sanctioned by the government of the People’s Republic. In a detached, distant style, the director and his crew pick up snatches of life in and around Bejing, including: kids at an elementary school; a hospital where a woman is giving a cesarean birth; and a cotton mill and its workers. Despite Antonioni’s efforts, China denounced the finished film, and as such, it has gone relatively unseen in most parts of the world, including the United States.Read More »

The Passenger (1975) marked the end of Antonioni’s three picture deal with MGM, and simultaneously the end of his mainstream acceptance. Although revered now as one of his finest works, The Passenger had lukewarm reception at best, with most of the American critics still bitter of Antonioni’s caricaturing of American capitalism in Zabriskie Point (1969). Since those two films had been costly flops, Antonioni found himself unable to secure investors for the arthouse pictures he’d become known for. Five years past, and still not a film, until finally Antonioni settled on The Oberwald Mystery.Read More »

Promotional omnibus film, made for the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, featuring portraits of 12 Italian cities.
For all those who will not be going to Italy for a vacation this year… here is the next best thing. A who’s who of Italian directors anno 1990 turn their cameras on a specific Italian city. Most of these (very) short films do not have dialogue of any kind, and rely instead solely on the beauty of the images and music to depict the various cities.

Directed by
Michelangelo Antonioni (segment “Roma”)
Bernardo Bertolucci (segment “Bologna”)
Giuseppe Bertolucci (segment “Bologna”)
Mauro Bolognini (segment “Palermo”)
Alberto Lattuada (segment “Genova”)
Carlo Lizzani (segment “Cagliari”)
Mario Monicelli (segment “Verona”)
Ermanno Olmi (segment “Milano”)
Gillo Pontecorvo (segment “Udine”)
Francesco Rosi (segment “Napoli”)
Mario Soldati (segment “Torino”)
Lina Wertmüller (segment “Bari”)
Franco Zeffirelli (segment “Firenze”)Read More »

A non-fiction documentary made between 1943 and 1947 about a barge trip down the Po River, looking at the relationship between individuals and their environment.Read More »

Description :
In this magnificently inscrutable late-sixties masterpiece, Marco Ferreri, one of European cinema’s most idiosyncratic auteurs, takes us through the looking glass to one seemingly routine night in the life of an Italian gas mask designer, played, in a tour de force performance, by New Wave icon Michel Piccoli. In his claustrophobic mod home, he pampers his pill-popping wife, seduces his maid, and uncovers a gun that may have once been owned by John Dillinger—and then things get even stranger. A surreal political missive about social malaise, Dillinger Is Dead (Dillinger è morto) finds absurdity in the mundane. It is a singular experience, both illogical and grandly existential.Read More »

Quote:
In this stylish and offbeat black comedy, Benito ( Jerry Calà) keeps a diary of his sexual fantasies and cravings. As a result of his on-again, off-again relationship with the beautiful and insatiable Luigia (Sabrina Ferilli), his thoughts along these lines have grown increasingly bizarre. For his own part, he is driven to pick up and bed women at almost every opportunity. As the fantasies recorded in his diary consume more and more of his life, and grow darker and darker, his ordinary waking life becomes flatter and duller, until he disappears altogether.
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideRead More »

Synopsis:
The Italians continue their penchant for gang-directed features in this sexploitation comedy. Part one is entitled “Cocaine On Sunday” in which a husband (Nino Manfredi) and wife (Annamaria Ferrero) start snorting the stuff after the friend who owned the bottle is arrested. In part two, Ugo Tognazzi plays a professor who feels he is becoming too much like his elderly maiden aunts. In the final episode, a businesswoman agrees to meet a street musician, but he is frustrated when she is delayed by her vocational priorities. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie GuideRead More »

A sophisticated Italian beauty (Carroll Baker) is unable to pick between the three men she is admittedly in love with. As a result Gianni (Gastone Moschin), Gaetano (Renato Salvatori), and Mike (Michel Le Royer) are invited to a lush villa in the Adriatic coastal city of Dubrovnik to participate in a small contest. There day after day Margherita will toy with the men’s sexual fantasies until they finally realize that no one is expected to win.Read More »