Laura Betti
Franco Maresco celebrates the heritage of Pier Paolo Pasolini on the 99th anniversary of his birth through a series of exchanges with renowned intellectuals which were involved or influenced by his works and ideas.
Documentary about the making of Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Canterbury Tales (1972), and particularly focusing on the many edits and cut scenes that were made before the film's release.
The story of an unlikely friendship between two men: Giocondo, a wealthy upper middle class man passionately in love with Nono, a black strip-teaser who has ruined him; and the Snake, a male strip-teaser who has traveled all over the world on cruising boats, a tough guy made tougher after a treachery by one of his friends. They meet in jail, where they are kept for different reasons and a strong, brotherly link is born between them.
Period giallo about a young cook who's accused of killing her wealthy husband.
Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom she both loves and hates. Elena is fifteen and devilishly beautiful. Neither more futile, nor more stupid than her younger sister, she cannot understand that she is merely an object of desire. And, as such, she can only be taken. Or had. Indeed, this is the subject: a girl's loss of virginity. And, that summer, it opens a door to tragedy.
Based on an acclaimed, popular historical novel by Dacia Maraini, this 18th-century set costumer follows the adventures of a deaf-mute noblewoman who strives to escape her dark past and the social conventions that force her to remain married to a man she detests. The story begins when the already speechless title duchess is 12 years old. In hopes of shocking her back into speaking, her grandfather takes her to a hanging. The causes of Marianna's affliction are revealed slowly as the story progresses, but the whole truth is not revealed until the end. Though she is much loved by her family, they still force her to marry her ancient uncle when she is only 13. Her wedding night is horrific as is the birth of her first daughter. Her husband is desperate for an heir so she is forced to endure his unwanted attentions until she is finally able to bear him a son. Despite her oppressive life, Marianna is able to find freedom in subtle ways.
An intriguing look at a sinister web of power,linking politics and the mafia in modern day Italy.
Pietro is the sensitive son of Domenico, a gruff father. Pietro falls in love with a beautiful girl, Ghisola, who lives with her grandparents.
An epileptic 12-year-old girl, Pippi, is hospitalized in the psychiatric ward instead of the neurological ward, due to an administration error. Out of this mistake begins the difficult journey towards being cured.
Mario and Maria Boschi, a 30-year-old couple with small children, are hit by a crisis: husband and wife cannot agree on a party name. A colleague, also named Mario, makes an impressive speech, and Maria find herself increasingly attracted to him. She feels able to relate to him like she could to her husband in the old days. They spend the night together, and she falls ill. When she is asked by her husband to leave the house, she realizes that there may be a difference between real love and a vague need for understanding.
Despite being busy with his profession of soldiery, Brantome manages to find much more time for amorous dalliances with the ladies of the 16th-century French court than for battles. Unfortunately for him, his true love, Victoire, is beyond his reach most of the time. He more than compensates for this in the arms of others.
A miraculous mushroom is discovered by a film director's daughter.It would be used to cure an actress.
The interests, obsessions, and fantasies of two singular artists converge in this inspired collaboration between Agnès Varda and her longtime friend the actor Jane Birkin. Made over the course of a year and motivated by Birkin’s fortieth birthday—a milestone she admits to some anxiety over—Jane B. by Agnès V. contrasts the private, reflective Birkin with Birkin the icon.
A serial killer is terrifying the prostitutes in a big Italian city. After few barbaric murdering four prostitutes Lena, Angela, Nadine and Stella decide to unify and try to self-defend themselves. The police and all the other prostitutes agree with the four and the hunting is open. Who is the cruel killer?
Molinat is assigned to the case of a man found with a bullet in his ear on the shore of a little Atlantic coast resort he knows well. Indeed, he used to live there before his wife disappeared at sea, never to be found again. As the ocean rejects a new corpse everyday, the mystery thickens and the list of potential suspects grows longer. This slows Molinat's progress as much as the cumbersome Leroyer, sent in to spy on him and hopefully impede his progress. The tension mounts and the ring involving the three young ladies in the grey mansion, the village idiot and the real estate agent starts spinning out of control.
A young man, recently arrived in New York from Europe, becomes swept up in a series of events that are beyond his knowledge or control.
Young student Claudine has a dream in which the Roman student Cornelius, fascinated by the beautiful wife of the commander, attends lectures on the art of love of great Ovid. Ancient tragedy happens again in a few centuries ...
In June of 1791, a group of passengers in a stagecoach find themselves caught up in the events of the French Revolution, when they find themselves in the city of Varennes when revolutionists arrest the fleeing King Louis.
Christian, an art critic, must write a study on the painter René Dimanche in order to understand why he did not produce anything for eight years. He asks his friend Ingrid to help him break through this mystery.
Philo Bregstein tells us this film looks at Pasolini's life and art to explain why he died. The film traces Pasolini's life chronologically - family roots, hiding during World War II, teaching, moving to Rome, being arrested and acquitted many times, publishing poems, getting into film, being provocative, and being murdered. Interviews with Alberto Moravia, Laura Betti, Maria Antonietta Macciocch, and Bernard Bertolucci are inter-cut with readings of Pasolini's poems and with clips from four films - primarily the Gospel According to St. Matthew - to illustrate his changing ideas and points of view. Bregstein makes a case for Pasolini's being lynched.
Traces the life of Anna Magnani, her creations, her successes, her triumphs, her boycotted career, her nonconformism, her anxieties, her generosity ... Punctuated with photos that tell her career in theater and cinema, Extracts of films, this documentary portrait also gives the floor to his friends and relatives, from Roberto Rossellini to Marcello Mastroianni, through Federico Fellini.
American actress on vacation in Italy falls for her friend's married Italian lover.
On a stopover in Barcelona, Fériaud Roland discovers a corpse in the hotel room next door. He wakes up in a strange clinic without remembering who brought him there. The doctor insists he hallucinated, but it's not long before he obtains evidence that it wasn't a dream.
A young writer is trapped between his awful actress mother and the knowledge that he has only a mediocre talent as a playwright and almost no force of character.
Playwright Charles Watson entertains his niece Lily by telling her about the adventures of Philibert.Both these people have something to do with Philibert.
The setting is a Central European kingdom, near the turn of the century. Bored by his very proper wife, the youthful heir to the throne spends his time in amorous dalliances at a sprawling country estate. His wife departs at the arrival of his friends, and they organize a celebration which becomes a wild orgy and culminates in death and tragedy.
Based on a true incident, this tells the story of a troubled young man who kills his sister's reactionary, violent and abusive husband and is eventually arrested for the murder. However, the dead husband happened to be a member of the Italian nobility, and the trial starts to turn into more of a prosecution of the defendant's socialist politics and the activities of his father, a well known liberal social reformer, than the actual crime itself.
Italian coming of age story about two cousins, Enzo and Agata, told in three stages.
Suave Fulvio (Marcello Mastroianni) woos women as he and the Sublime Brothers, 20 of them, attempt revolution in 1816 Italy.
An elderly millionaire manipulates an avant-garde writer and a happily married man.
A man receives a telegram that his father is dying, and travels with his wife to his hometown. They discover that the telegram is untrue, and set out to find who sent the message and why.
Duke Philippe married Cristina, daughter of a fisherman. But his brothers, seeing that these after marriage they would miss out inheritance, decide to get rid of the woman by imprisoning her in a tower and making the duke believe she died.
Glimpses of Chaucer penning his famous work are sprinkled through this re-enactment of several of his stories.
1972, Milano. We are just a few days before the general elections. The daughter of a well-known professor is found dead. Mr Bizanti, and Mr Montelli, editor-in-chief and owner of newspaper Il Giornale try to derail the official police investigation in order to help the fascist candidates they support in the upcoming elections.
In 1958 Angelo, a rich and spoiled boy, enters a religious school, where students are tired of its vice-rector, and the strict rules and old-fashioned teaching methods of priests. Soon, Angelo exerts strong leadership among his peers and incites turmoil among them, helped by intellectual Franco and shy Camma. They expel the prefect from the school, organize a Grand Guignol show, and disappear the corpse of an old professor.
An elderly heiress is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out murder spree as relatives and friends attempt to reduce the inheritance playing field, complicated by some teenagers who decide to camp out in a dilapidated building on the estate.
A madman haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife carves a corpse-laden trail.
James Garner is Luther Sledge, the leader of a pack of rebels who are planning to steal a stash of gold. But after the thieves actually manage to get away with the bounty, they soon discover that the enemy lies within their midst. As they begin to bicker over who should get the biggest cut, the stage is set for a deadly showdown. Claude Akins and John Marley co-star in this Italian Western directed by Vic Morrow.
Two dramatic stories. In an undetermined past, a young cannibal (who killed his own father) is condemned to be torn to pieces by some wild beasts. In the second story, Julian, the young son of a post-war German industrialist, is on the way to lie down with his farm's pigs, because he doesn't like human relationships.
The tragic and self-destructive sexual battle between a man and his wife. A drama for the desperate struggle of those who are different against the normality that rejects the margins. The couple is preparing to consume a relationship of extreme sadomasochism. Recorded theatre production.
The tragic and self-destructive sexual battle between a man and his wife. A drama for the desperate struggle of those who are different against the normality that rejects the margins. The couple is preparing to consume a relationship of extreme sadomasochism. Recorded theatre production.
The film consists of six short stories created by different directors, but all the stories share one thing: a warm irony to current events.
Some puppets come to life in a theater with no windows. This time the puppets interpret William Shakespeare's Othello.
Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from women and lust from men. A woman offers to take an injured man to the hospital. A widowed father and his son seek for a new wife/mother. A man seeks revenge for a woman's honor. A bored housewife tries to explain to her husband that he's not as romantic as he used to be.
Ciancicato Miao and his son, after the death of his wife and mother by mushroom poisoning, are dedicated to find her replacement and have no luck until they find a mysterious deaf mute green-haired woman.
A documentary highlighting some of the oddest, strangest and more grotesque examples of human behavior. Included are a tour of the Grand Guignol theater in Paris, a man who sticks long needles through his body, footage of reindeer being castrated, and more footage of lesbians and strippers
This consists of four short films by different directors. Rosselini's 'Chastity' deals with an attractive air hostess who receives the unwelcome attentions of a middle aged American. Godard's 'New World' illustrates a post-apocalypse world the same as the pre-apocalyptic one but for an enigmatic change in attitude in most people, including the central character's girlfriend. In Pasolini's 'La Ricotta' (Curd Cheese), a lavish film about the life of Jesus Christ is being made in a poor area. The impoverished people subject themselves to various indignities in the name of moviemaking in order to win a little food. The central character is hoisted up on a cross for filming, and dies there. Finally comes Gregoretti's 'Free Range Chicken' in which a family of the materialist culture inadvertantly illustrate the cynical, metallic voiced doctrine of a top sales theorist.
Made as part of the omnibus film RoGoPaG, this short is a hilarious religious farce. At the Cinecittá film studio a director (played by Orson Welles) begins shooting a film dealing with Christ's cruxification. Among the cast is a Jesus who has sex with boys in the bushes, and a peasant who plays one of the thieves crucified alongside Jesus - the actor literally dies on the cross, but not of inflicted wounds, but of indigestion caused by too much cheese.
Journalist and man-about-town Marcello struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.
A lawyer heads out on the road in an attempt to find his daughter who has been missing for quite some time. To help him navigate the secret world his daughter lived within that he knows nothing about, he recruits the help of Irene a close friend of his daughter's. But Irene has plans of her own.
In Nazi-occupied Rome, a beautiful bootlegger, to the chagrin of her lover, gives sanctuary to three escaped POWs: an American pilot, a Russian sergeant and a British major
