Angela Goodwin
In a curious-looking old hospital, an elderly couple, Carlo and Clara, is waiting for their turn tenderly holding hands. There is a choice to be made, and the woman begins to hesitate. Only the words of the loving Carlo will be able to transform fear into courage. At one point the setting makes way for animation, suggested and overlapped by the words of Clara. It leads the listener to a deep reflection on life. The brief evocation of the magic of existence is imprinted in the deeply moved smile of the woman, certain that life on Earth is nothing but a stage of eternity.
Bella is the host of a popular television program about plastic surgery. Her husband René is a surgeon who performs operations on guests during the same show. Then Bella is fired, due to a drop in the ratings. She storms out of the TV studio and has a terrible car accident on the way home, leaving her disfigured. Yet what might well seem to be the coup de grace for Bella’s career turns out to be the perfect occasion to relaunch her own image...
A group of Roman misfits spend the fall minding a vintage shop called Twinkled, a business that is failing in every way but in spirit. The owner strives to keep the store afloat, even as his wife insists that he sell the place and get a real job. One day a beautiful young woman named Camilla takes a job cleaning the store, and her presence has a profound effect on the lives of everyone, including Stefano, the well-meaning but unorganized shopkeeper, and Gigio, Camilla's loving younger brother who has Down's syndrome.
Titta di Girolamo has been living in a small hotel in Lugano for ten years, he leads a dull and rigid live and has apparently lost his capability to feel human emotion. This all changes when he decides to talk to Sofia, the Barmaid.
The debut feature by acclaimed Italian director Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo) is a stylish and blackly comic look at the dark side of fame. Evocatively set during the eighties, the film charts the decline of two men both named Antonio Pisapia who lead entirely separate yet strangely parallel lives. One (Toni Servillo, Gomorrah) is a pop singer who finds himself washed up after a sex scandal ends his run of success; the other (Andrea Renzi) a football hero whose playing career is abruptly cut short by injury. Sharply observed and featuring excellent performances from the two leads, Sorrentino's compelling film explores the personal consequences wrought by cruel reversals of fortune. (iTunes)
In this bizarre and darkly comic fantasy, Antonio (Sergio Rubini) is a man who was born with unusually large incisors; his freakishly huge teeth make him an outcast from his peers as a child, and he attempts more than once to break off the offending choppers. The emotionally fragile Antonio was further devastated at the age of 12 when his mother (Anouk Grinberg) died, and as a man, he's become obsessive and controlling in his relationships with women. Antonio is convinced that his girlfriend Mara (Anita Caprioli) has been unfaithful to him -- with her dentist (Tom Novembre), of course. After Antonio confronts Mara in a moment of anger, she responds with rage, and strikes him in the face with a large ashtray, breaking off one of his teeth. Antonio now must travel across the land, going from dentist to dentist in search of someone who can make a crown that will suit his extra-large smile. Denti was shown in competition at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Ti presento un'amica (internationally released as Private Affairs and Quite by Chance) is a 1988 comedy drama film directed by Francesco Massaro.
In a straightforward yet unexceptional rendering of the life and loves of Alberto (Ben Gazzara), a writer/director approaching the hill though not yet over it, director Alberto Bevilacqua has used his own experiences to fashion a conventional tale about a search for the "perfect woman." His mettlesome neighbor Luisa (Lina Sastri) just will not leave him alone; she was the reason why he ended his marriage to Maura (Claudia Cardinale), but Alberto considers their affair dead and buried. Recently, an anonymous "dream woman" has been calling him for some seductive phone exchanges. As he searches out the identity of the mystery caller he is also distracted by Luisa who starts to insinuate herself back into his affections. Sooner or later, Alberto will just have to decide how to handle his love life, which in the end may only be mesmerizing to himself alone.
The four old friends meet on the grave of the fifth of them, Perozzi, who died at the end of the first episode. Time has passed but they are still up for adventures and cruel jokes, and while they recall the one they created together with the late friend, new ones are on their way, starting right there at the cemetery.
A young pick-pocket meets a sheltered teenage girl at an art museum while trying to lift her wallet. He falls in love with her and lures her to deserted strip of beach where he pretends his stolen motorbike has broken down and they are stranded. An unlikely romance follows.
As John Dhannay, a CIA agent stationed in Rome, plans the overthrow of an African government, he discovers one of his men has been in contact with agents from the other side. Before he can confront the traitor, the man seemingly goes crazy, sniping several people before taking an adulterous couple hostage in a hotel room.
Italian tearjerker about an up and coming swimming star struggling with a serious illness.
A man and his stepson driving across Europe are terrorized by a man following them in a pickup truck.
Rome, October 16, 1943. The Germans deport the relatives and friends of the little Giacomo Treves who fortunately escapes capture. The child is entrusted by a priest, Don Luigi.
Passengers on a European train have been exposed to a deadly disease. Nobody will let them off the train. So what happens next?
Two members of the fascist legion GOD WANTS IT, Michele and Luigi, both from Sicily, met in Malaga and became friends in the course of the 1936-39 counter revolution. Based upon the short story by Leonardo Sciascia.
Four middle-aged friends in Florence organize together idle pranks (called zingarate, "gypsy shenanigans") in a continuous attempt to prolong childhood during their adult life.
A series of random suicides in Rome, Italy are attributed to a heatwave, but a young pathologist named Simona—who is working on a thesis about murders disguised as suicides—suspects otherwise. When a young girl associated with Simona's playboy father ends up dead in another apparent suicide, Simona teams up with the girl's priest brother to prove she was murdered and track down the unknown serial killer.
A story about ten year old Enrico who spends the summer in the village mostly playing Indians with his friends.
Little Marco suffers from his parents' divorce. He runs away from home and is hit by a car. He drags on but eventually dies under a tree with pink leaves, remembering a story his grandmother told him.
Directed by the Oscar-winning screenwriter Ennio De Concini, Daniele e Maria (1973) is the tale of a forbidden romance between a rich and reclusive boy and the poor girl whose kindness opens up his formerly sheltered life. As the familiar setup from Romeo and Juliet suggests, the romance can only have a tragic ending as Maria is whisked away from her love and is forced into a loveless marriage organized by the rich family sheltering Daniele…
A young provincial elementary school teacher, falls in love with a Venetian girl, daughter of a rich industrialist.
Paronzini at the age of 50, decides to get married and he looks at the Tettamanzi's three sisters.
