Elide Melli
Set in Italy in the 1970s, VALLANZASCA is the true story of the Italian underworld’s most infamous outlaw. A criminal by age 9, Renato Vallanzasca grew up to become the country’s most notorious mobster before the age of 27. Vallanzasca and his gang wrested control of the Milan underworld with a string of high profile robberies, kidnappings and murders. In the process, he captivated the public and earned the nickname ‘il bel Renè’ – for his devilish charm and handsome face. Arrested multiple times, his daring escapes from prison enraged the government, angered his rivals and fed his legend.
Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione, is an unscrupulous and beautiful woman, in love with Andrea Pieri, a patriot ready to do anything to free Italy from the foreign oppressor. Wounded during a chase, Pieri takes refuge in the castle of Virginia, which, with the approval of her husband, Count Francesco Verasis of Castiglione, takes care of him. Meanwhile, Nigra, in charge of the affairs of the Kingdom of Piedmont in Paris, discovers the relations of the countess with the subversives and sees in her the perfect tool to bring Napoleon closer to the Italian cause.
Set in 1940’s and 50’s Sicily (Paternò), we follow the fortunes of Rosetta from the time she’s twelve (Larissa Volpentesta) and living with her drunken father Leone (Harvey Keitel) – he’d turned to alcohol to forget Rosetta’s mother, Vipera (Elide Melli), after she ran away with a fascist some time ago. Little Rosetta’s fortunes turn for the worse when she’s raped and made pregnant by another former fascist (Giancarlo Giannini), and Leone also dies after falling from his bicycle. She’s sent to live in a convent until the age of twenty one, and her newborn child will cruelly be adopted out by her visiting mother.
The annual film festival in Venice is, of course, an ideal place to make a film (how come no-one has thought of it before). Everything is there in Pupi Avati's Festival: the famous hotels Des Bain and Excelsior on the Lido, the shimmering sandy beach which captivated Visconti. The film was made last spring and exploits the presence of passing film stars such as Jack Nicholson. We see the hysterical press conferences, where journalists and experts ask intelligent questions-without listening to the answers.
An expressionist biography of Edith Stein, who converted from the Jewish faith to the Catholic one and became a Carmelite sister. She would die in a German concentration camp.
In the ruins of an amphitheatre just outside an unnamed Italian city lives Momo, a little girl of mysterious origin. She is remarkable in the neighbourhood because she has the extraordinary ability to listen — really listen. By simply being with people and listening to them, she can help them find answers to their problems, make up with each other, and think of fun games.
Freely adapted from a story by Marcel Schwob in 'Screw imaginary' and deeply focused on the thought of Georges Bataille, the film wants to give substance to Clodia tragic affair, the Roman noblewoman loved by Catullo and made him immortal in his ways, with the Lesbia pseudonym.
A left-wing intellectual of middle age, with a past in the Italian Social Republic , after the end of the second marriage with a black woman, falls in love with a very young, girlfriend of his son, and with her he flees to the Caribbean. Once the vacation is over, love also ends. In some ways the film is an autobiography of the director.
