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Italian Films
Films are listed alphabetically by the title given on the film
box, but, where possible, the Italian or English equivalent is also
listed. If you cannot find what you are looking for, ask an LTC
employee for assistance. You can search for more information about
a particular film using a very helpful resource, the Internet
Movie Database. (Clicking will open it in a new window). Films
are subtitled in English unless otherwise noted. At the bottom is
a list of Italian films that are not in the LTC but are in Briggs
Library. To recommend a film that is not yet in the LTC collection,
send an email to Viktor Berberi, LTC Director: berberiv@morris.umn.edu
Title: 8 1/2
Director:
Federico Fellini
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni,
Claudia Cardinale and Anouk Aimée
Year: 1963
Run Time: 139 minutes
Summary:
A harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.
Format: DVD |
Title: L'Alber degli Zoccoli English:
The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Director:
Ermanno Olmi
Starring: Luigi Ornaghi,
Francesca Moriggi, Omar Brignoli, Antonio Ferrari, Teresa Brescianini,
Giuseppe Brignoli, Carlo Rota, Pasqualina Brolis, Massimo Fratus,
Francesca Villa, Maria Grazia Caroli, Battista Trevaini, Giuseppina
Langalelli, Lorenzo Pedroni, and Felice Cessi
Year:
1978
Run Time: 179 minutes
Summary: The life inside a farm in Italy at
the beginning of the century. Many poor country families live
there, and the owner pays them by their productivity. One of
the families has a very clever child. They decide to send him
to school instead of make him help them, although this represents
a great sacrifice. the boy has to wake up very early and walk
several miles to get to the school. One day the boy's shoes
break when returning home, but they do not have money to buy
other. What can they do?
Format: DVD |
Title: Amaracord
Director:
Federico Fellini
Starring: Magalì
Noel, Bruno Zanin, Pupella Maggio and Armando Brancia
Year:
1974
Run Time: 127 minutes
Summary: In this movie Fellini portrays his
hometown of Rimini as he remembered it in '30s, during his young
days.
Format: DVD |
Title: Best of Youth / La meglio gioventu
Director: Marco Tullio Giordana
Starring: Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni, Adriana Asti, Jasmine Trinca, Sonia Bergamasco
Year: 2003
Run Time: 180 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Special Condor, 2008; Un Certain Regard Award, 2003
Summary: Nicola and Matteo Carati are two brothers of Rome, who live the years from 1966 to 2000 and all the events which have signed this period. They begin their adventure, helping Giorgia, a young girl confined in an asylum. Then, after the flood of Florence, Nicola meets Giulia a talented piano player with a dangerous sympathy for the BR. Alessio, a rebel spirit entered in the police, will find the optimistic photographer Mirella. These four characters and many others will cross the years of terrorism and Tangentopoli.
Format:
DVD |
Title: Bread and Chocolate / Pane e cioccolata
Director: Franco Brusati
Starring: Nino Manfredi, Johnny Dorelli, Anna Karina, Paolo Turco
Year: 1976
Run Time: 100 minutes
Acclaim/Award: OCIC Award - Recommendation, 1974; Silver Berlin Bear, 1974
Summary: Italian immigrant tries to become a member of Swiss society but fails as a waiter and even as a chicken plucker. He then becomes involved with shady wealthy character and tries to hide his Italian identity. He refuses to give up no matter how awful his situation.
Format:
DVD |
Title: Bread and Tulips Italian:
Pane e Tulipani
Director: Silvio
Soldini
Starring: Giuseppe Battistion,
Antonio Catania, Marina Massironi, Vitalba Andrea, Caniela Piperno
and Tatiana Lepore
Year: 2002
Run
Time: 116 minutes
Acclaim/Award:
Winner of nine David Di Donatello Awards, Winner of Toronto
International Film Festival and Winner of Cannes Film Festival
Summary: A busy housewife is accidentally left
behind while on vacation with her family. She decides to take
a vacation of her own in Venice. Here she discovers the things
in life that make her happy. Will she return home to her husband
or stay in Venice?
Format: DVD |
Title: But Forever in my Mind / Come te nessuno mai
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Starring: Silvio Muccino, Giuseppe Sanfelice, Giulia Steigerwalt, Simone Pagani
Year: 2000
Run Time:
Acclaim/Award: Silver Iris, 2000
Summary: Silvio has no interest in the student rebellion taking place at his high school. His fascination lies with Valentin, the prettiest girl in the school. However, Valentina already has a jealous boyfriend, Martino. After Silvio finally has a moment alone with Valentina, he makes the mistake of telling his gossipy best friend, Ponzi. Creating more drama that must unfold.
Format:
DVD |
Title: Cabiria
Director: Giovanni Pastrone
Starring: Carolina Catena, Lidia Quaranta, Gina Marangoni, Dante Test
Year: 1914
Run Time: 148 minutes
Acclaim/Award:
Summary: Three centuries before Christus. Young Cabiria is kidnapped by some pirates during one eruption of the Etna. She is sold as a slave in Carthage, and as she is just going to be sacrificed to god Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by both Fulvio Axilla, a Roman noble, and his giant slave Maciste. Maciste is captured just after having confided Cabiria to Sophinisbe's safe keeping, while Fulvio Axilla manages to escape from Carthage. Ten years went away with Punic wars before he is able to come back to Carthage.
Format:
DVD |
Title: Caro Diario English:
Dear Diary
Director: Nanni Moretti
Starring: Nanni Moretti, Giovanna Bozzolo,
Sebastiano Nardone andAntonio Petrocelli
Year:
1993
Run Time: 96 minutes
Summary: Nani Moretti directs himself playing himself
in this wry look at life. Presented in three chapters, Moretti
uses the experiences of travelling.
Format: DVD
|
Title: Caterina va in Città English:
Caterina in the Big City
Director:
Paolo Virzì
Starring: Sergio Castellitto
and Margherita Buy
Year: 2003
Run
Time: 105 minutes
Summary: When his Father Giancarlo (Castellitto) is
transferred to Rome Caterina (Alice Teghil), a 12 years old
girl, will discover her new classmates, a totally new world,
an ambient extremely divided politically. And developing her
friendship with the link (represented by Margerita (Carolina
Iaquaniello) and the right (Daniela (Federica Sbrenna)) side
of her class she will lose herself, without knowing who really
she is. However, maybe is Edward (Zach Wallen), the boy who
lives in the facing windows that can help her more that she
thinks.
Format: DVD |
Title: Ciao, Professore!
Director:
Lina Wertmuller
Starring: Isa Danieli,
Gigio Morra, Eser Carloni and Sergio Solli
Year:
1976
Run Time: 91 minutes
Acclaim Award: “Rambunctious comedy!”-Los
Angeles Times
Summary: A comedy about a
strict, no-nonsense teacher whose street-smart students teach
him the most valuable lessons of life.
Format:
VHS |
Title: Cinema Paradiso
Director:
Gruseppe Tornatore
Starring: Philippe Noiret,
Jacques Perrin, Antonella Attili and Pupella Maggio
Year:
1989
Run Time: 174 minutes
Acclaim/Award:
Academy award winner of Best Foreign Language Film
Summary:
A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with
the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship
with the theater's projectionist.
Format:
DVD |
Title: The Conformist
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Jean-Louise Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio
Year: 1971
Run Time:
Acclaim/Awards: Oscar Nomination, 1972; Interfilm Award - Recommendation, 1970
Summary: This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job working for Mussollini and is courting a beautiful young woman who will make him even more of a conformist. Marcello is going to Paris on his honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. Look up an old professor who fled Italy when the fascists came into power. At the border of Italy and France, where Marcello and his bride have to change trains, his bosses give him a gun with a silencer. In a flashback to 1917, we learn why sex and violence are linked in Marcello's mind.
Format:
DVD |
Title: Da Zero A Dieci
Director:
Luciano Ligabue
Starring: Massimo Dellinzoni,
Elisabetta Cavallotti, Pierfrancesco Favino, Barbara Lerici,
Stefano Pesce, Stefania Rivi, Fabrizia Sacchi, Stefano Sacchi,
Stefano Venturi, and Sergio Romano
Year:
2002
Run Time: 99 minutes
Format:
DVD |
Title: Death in Venice (Morte a Venezia)
Director: Luchino Visconti
Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Romolo Valli, Mark Burns
Year: 1971
Run Time: 130 minutes
Summary: In this adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel, avant-garde composer Gustave Aschenbach (loosely based on Gustav Mahler) travels to a Venetian seaside resort in search of repose after a period of artistic and personal stress. But he finds no peace there, for he soon develops a troubling attraction to an adolescent boy, Tadzio, on vacation with his family. The boy embodies an ideal of beauty that Aschenbach has long sought and he becomes infatuated. However, the onset of a deadly pestilence threatens them both physically and represents the corruption that compromises and threatens all ideals.
Format: DVD |
Title: The Decameron
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Starring: Franco Citti, Ninetto Davoli, Jovan Jovanovic, Vincenzo Amato, Angela Luce
Year: 1971
Run Time: 112 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Silver Berlin Bear, 1971
Summary: An adaptation of nine stories from Bocaccio's "Decameron": A young Sicilian is swindled twice, but ends up rich; a man poses as a deaf-mute in a convent of curious nuns; a woman must hide her lover when her husband comes home early; a scoundrel fools a priest on his deathbed; three brothers take revenge on their sister's lover; a young girl sleeps on the roof to meet her boyfriend at night; a group of painters wait for inspiration; a crafty priest attempts to seduce his friend's wife; and two friends make a pact to find out what happen= s after death. Pasolini is up to his old tricks satirizing the Church, and throwing in liberal doses of life and love.
Format:
DVD |
Title: Le fate ignoranti
Director: Ferzan Ozpetek
Starring: Margherita Buy, Stefano Accorsi, Serra Yilmaz, Gabriel Garko
Year: 2001
Run Time: 106 minutes
Acclaim/Award: aGLIFF Award, 2002
Summary: AIDS doctor Antonia's husband is killed by a car. She gets depressed until she learns he had been cheating on her with a man. Following her newly born curiosity for life, she goes to see her husband's lover, Michele, and finds a huge apartment that he shares with gay and transgendered friends, including a Turkish immigrant and a prostitute. Antonia is reluctant to tell these people of her relationship to the dead man, but needs prompting to move on to a new phase of her life.
Format:
DVD |
Title: Le Fate Ignoranti English:
The Ignorant Fairies
Director: Ferazan
Ozpetek
Starring: Margherita Buy and Stefano
Accorsi
Year: 2001
Run Time:
106 minutes
Summary: AIDS doctor Antonia's
husband is killed by a car. She gets depressed until she learns
he had been cheating on her with a man.
Format:
DVD |
Title: Roma
Director: Federico Fellini
Starring: Peter Gonzales Falcon, Fiona Florence, Britta Barnes, Pia De Doses
Year: 1972
Run Time: 128 minutes
Summary: A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens. blending autobiography (a reconstruction of Fellini's own arrival in Rome during the Mussolini years; a trip to a brothel and a music-hall) with scenes from present-day Roman life (a massive traffic jam on the autostrada; a raucous journey through Rome after dark; following an archaeological team through the site of the Rome subways; an unforgettable ecclesiastical fashion show)
Format: DVD |
Title: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Starring: lino Capolicchio, Dominique Sanda, Fabio Testi, Romolo Valli, Helmut Berger
Year: 1970
Run Time: 94 minutes
Summary: In the late 1930s, in Ferrara, Italy, the Finzi-Contini are one of the leading families, wealthy, aristocratic, urbane; they are also Jewish. Their adult children, Micol and Alberto, gather a circle of friends for constant rounds of tennis and parties at their villa with its lovely grounds, keeping the rest of the world at bay. Into the circle steps Giorgio, a Jew from the middle class who falls in love with Micol. She seems to toy with him, and even makes love to one of his friends while she knows Giorgio is watching. While his love cannot seem to break through to her to draw her out of her garden idyll, the forces of politics close in.
Format: DVD |
Title: Gasoline
Director: Monica Stambrini
Starring: Maya Sansa, Regina Orioli, Mariella Valentini, Luigi MariaBurrauno, Chiara Conti
Year: 2001
Run Time: 90 minute
Summary: Fiery, dark-haired Stella, an intense auto mechanic, and nervous, blonde Eleonora (aka Lenni) are young and in love, and are from opposite ends of the social spectrum. They operate a gas station peacefully, until Lenni's mother appears and voices her disapproval of their lesbian romance. When Stella takes action in the heat of the moment, blood flies and the young women end up with a corpse on their hands. The lovers realize they must flee in order to stay together.
Format: DVD |
Title: Gattopardo English:
The Leopard
Director: Luchino Visconti
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale,
Alain Delon, Sere Reggiani and Rina Morelli
Year:
1963
Run Time: 205 minutes
Summary: Sicily in the 1800s. Prince Salina, a great
landowner, has to watch the decrease of his power and influence
after 'Il Risorgimento'.
Format: DVD |
Title: Hawks and Sparrows / Uccellacci e uccellini
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Starring: Toto, Ninetto Davoli, Femi Benussi, Umberto Bevilacqua, Renato Capogna
Year: 1966
Run Time: 89 minutes
Summary: On an empty road, an old man is walking with his son. They meet a crow that can speak. They are changed into monks and Saint Francois sent them to preach for hawks and sparrows. A reflexion about idealism.
Format: DVD |
Title: I'm Not Scared / Io non ho paura
Director: Gabriele Salvatores
Starring: Giuseppe Cristiano, Mattia Di Pierro, Adriana Conserva, Fabio Tetta
Year:2003
Run Time: 108 minutes
Summary: While playing outside one day, nine-year-old Michele discovers Filippo, who is chained to the ground at the bottom of a hole. Michele witnesses town baddie Felice nearby and suspects something bad is happening. Michele is unsure whom he should tell about his discovery, eventually spilling the beans to his closest friend. Michele's parents learn of his discovery and warn him to forget whatever he saw.
Format: DVD |
Title: Italian for Beginners
Director: Lone Scherfig
Starring:
Anders W. Berthelsen, Anette Stovelbaek and Ann Eleonora Jorgensen
Year: 2000
Run Time:
97 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “Fun and
filled with warm humor!”-Chicago Sun-Times
Summary:
A romantic comedy about seven perfect strangers and the shared
journey of discovery that changes each of their lives. A mismatched
collection of opposites sign up for an Italian class in hopes
of spicing up their lives.
Format: DVD
|
Title: Juliet of the Spirits
Director: Federico Fellini
Starring: Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo, Mario Pisu, Valentina Cortese, Valeska Gert
Year:1965
Run Time: 137 minutes
Summary: Juliet lives in a beautiful house by the ocean. Her sisters, and especially her Mother overshadow her with their beauty. She is a spiritual, superstious and naive woman. She visits a psychic seer who tells her she must follow the sex trade in order to be happy. Not long after she meets her eccentric and sexy neighbour, Suzy, who, by all counts appears to be a high class prostitute and encourages Juilet into sexual acts which make her guilty and nervous. A rare night when her husband is at home she wakes up to catch him talking to another woman on the phone. He calls out the name "Gabriella" while sleeping, but when she questions him he lies his way out of it. She finds out who Gabriella is and fears her husband will leave her. Juliet begins having visions who accuse and terrorise her. The pinnacle of the visions comes at the end where it is implied she realises she would be better off without her husband and is ultimately emotionally emancipated.
Format: DVD |
Title: Lamerica
Director:
Gianni Amerlio
Starring: Enrico Lo Verso,
and Michele Placido
Year: 1994
Run
Time: 115 minutes
Summary: Two
Italian racketeers come to Albania just after the fall of the
communists to set up a fictive firm and pocket the grants.
Format: DVD |
Title: Life is Beautiful
Director:
Roberto Benigni
Starring: Roberto Benigni
and Nicoletta Braschi
Year: 1998
Run
Time: 116 minutes
Acclaim/Award:
Nominated for seven Academy Awards and Winner of three Oscars
Summary: A man’s life is threatened by
World War II and he must rely on his creativity and strength
to save his wife and son.
Format: DVD |
Title: Malena
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Starring: Monica Bellucci, Giuseppe Sulfaro, Luciano Federico, Matilde Piana
Year: 2000
Run Time: 109 minutes
Summary: On the day in 1940 that Italy enters the war, two things happen to the 12-year-old Renato: he gets his first bike, and he gets his first look at Malèna. She is a beautiful, silent outsider who's moved to this Sicilian town to be with her husband, Nico. He promptly goes off to war, leaving her to the lustful eyes of the men and the sharp tongues of the women. During the next few years, as Renato grows toward manhood, he watches Malèna suffer and prove her mettle. He sees her loneliness, then grief when Nico is reported dead, the effects of slander on her relationship with her father, her poverty and search for work, and final humiliations. Will Renato learn courage from Malèna and stand up for her?
Format: DVD |
Title: Mamma Rosa
Director: Raoul Sangla
Starring: Clélia Montana, Yves Afonso, Edmond Chetrit, Richard Leduc, Jean Lescot
Year: 1978
Run Time:
Summary:
Format: DVD |
Title: Mille Bolle Blu
Director:
Leone Pompucci
Starring: Carla Benedetti,Matteo
Fadda and Giacomo Fadda
Year: 1996
Run Time: 83 minutes
Acclaim/Award:
Given four stars from the Toronto Sun Newspaper
Summary:
The movie tells the little stories of a group of families who
live in the same building in Rome as seen from the eyes of Sandrino.
Format: VHS |
Title: Mio padre è
innocente
Directed by: Vincenzo Verdecchi
Starring: Francesco Golisano, Paolo Stoppa,
Emma Gramatica
Year: 1997
Run time: 112 minutes
Note: Stored with the Advanced Italian computer
program
Format: DVD |
Title: Miracle in Milan
Directed
by: Vittorio de Sica
Year: 1951
Starring: Francesco Golisano, Paolo Stoppa,
Emma Gramatica
Acclaim / Awards: “The
rich vein of sly, compassionate humor that Chaplin used to mine
has been tapped by De Sica: the great director has brought up
purest gold.” --Bosley Crowther, The New York Times
Run time: 96 minutes
Summary:
The story of Toto, an abandoned newborn who is raised by a kindly
old lady to be a paragon of goodness.
Format:
VHS |
Title: My Name is Nobody
Director: Tonino Valerii
Starring: Terence Hill, Henry Fonda, Jean Martin, R.G. Armstrong
Year: 1974
Run Time: 117 minutes
Summary: ack Beauregard, once the greatest gunslinger of the Old West, only wants to move to Europe and retire in peace. But a young gunfighter, known only as "Nobody", idolizes him and wants to see him go out in a blaze of glory. He arranges for Jack to face the 150-man gang known as The Wild Bunch and earn his place in history.
Format: DVD |
Title: My Voyage to Italy
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Martin Scorsese
Year: 1999
Run Time: 246 minutes
Summary: I saw these movies. They had a powerful effect on me. You should see them." That's Martin Scorsese's message for this documentary. We meet his family on Elizabeth Street in New York; he's a third generation Italian with Sicilian roots. Starting in 1949, they watched movies on TV as well as in theaters, lots of Italian imports. Scorsese, with his narration giving a personal as well as a public context, shows extended clips of these movies. Films of Rossellini and De Sica fill part one; those of Visconti, Fellini, and Antonioni comprise part two. Scorsese takes time with emotion, style, staging, technique, political context, and cinematic influence. It's his movie family.
Format: DVD |
Title: The Night of the Shooting Stars
Director: Paolo Taviani & Vittorio Taviani
Starring: Omero Antonutti, Margarita Lozano, Glaudio Bigagli, Miriam Guidelli
Year: 1982
Run Time: 105 minutes
Summary: The Night of San Lorenzo, the night of the shooting stars, is the night when dreams come true in Italian folklore. In 1944, a group of Italians flee their town after hearing rumours that the Nazis plan to blow it up and that the Americans are about to arrive to liberate them.
Format: DVD |
Title: The Night Porter
Director: Liliana Cavani
Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling, Philippe Leroy, Gabriele Ferzetti
Year: 1974
Run Time: 118 minute
Summary: Thirteen years after WWII a concentration camp survivor (Rampling) and her tormentor, currently the night porter at a Vienna hotel, meet again and fall back into their sado-masochistic relationship.
Format: DVD |
Title: Nirvana
Director:
Gabriele Salvatores
Starring: Christopher
Lambert, Diego Abtantuono and Sergio Rubini
Year:
1997
Run Time: 113 minutes
Summary:
Jimi, a successful computer game designer, finds that
his latest product has been infected by a virus which has given
consciousness to the the main character of the game, Solo. Tormented
by the memory of his fled girlfriend Lisa and begged by Solo
to end its useless "life", Jimi begins a search for people who
can help him both to discover what happened to Lisa and to delete
his game before it is released.
Format:
DVD |
Title: La Notte English:
The Night
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau
Year: 1989
Run Time: 115
minutes
Acclaim/Award: Winner of the Golden
Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival
Summary:
Giovanni, a sucessful writer, and his wife Lydia visit their
friend Tommaso who is dying in hospital.
Format:
DVD |
Title: Once upon a Time in the West
Director: Sergio Leone
Starring: Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson
Year: 1968
Run Time: 175 minutes
Summary: Story of a young woman, Mrs. McBain, who moves from New Orleans to frontier Utah, on the very edge of the American West. She arrives to find her new husband and family slaughtered, but by who? The prime suspect, coffee-lover Cheyenne, befriends her and offers to go after the real killer, assassin gang leader Frank, in her honor. He is accompanied by Harmonica on his quest to get even. Get-rich-quick subplots and intricate character histories intertwine with such artistic flair that this could in fact be the movie-to-end-all-movies.
Format: DVD |
Title: Open City
Director:
Roberto Rossellini
Starring: Anna
Magnani
Year: 1945
Run Time:
105 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Winner
of Best Picture at the Cannes Film Festival
Summary:
Filmed on the streets of Rome in the first weeks of
the Allied liberation this film evokes the conflicting feelings
of despair and determination.
Format: DVD
|
Title: L’Ora Di Religione English:
The Religion Hour
Director: Marco
Bellocchio
Starring: Sergio Castellitto,
Jacqueline Lustig and Chiara Conti
Year:
2002
Run Time: 102 minutes
Summary:
A celebrated painter receives a visit from a cardinal's
assistant, who informs him that his mother could become a saint.
Format: DVD |
Title: The Organizer
Director:
Mario Monicelli
Starring: Marcello
Mastroianni, Anne Girardot and Bernared Blier
Year:
1964
Run Time: 127 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Winner of four International
Film Festival Awards
Summary: In 19th century
Turin, an itinerant professor unites a ragtag group of textile
workers in a strike against their factory.
Format:
VHS |
Title: Padre Padrone English:
My Father My Master
Director: Paolo
and Vittorio Taviani
Starring: Omero Antonutti,
SaverioMarconi, MarcellaMichelangelo and Fabrizio Forte
Year: 1977
Run Time: 117
minutes
Acclaim/Award: Grand and Critics
Prize Winner at the Cannes Film Festival
Summary:
The true story of the life of Gavino Ledda, the son of a Sardinian
shepherd, and how he managed to escape his harsh almost barbaric
existence by slowly educating himself, despite violent opposition
from his brutal father.
Format: DVD |
Title: Pinocchio
Director: Roberto Benigni
Starring: Robert Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Carlo Giuffre, Kim Rossi Stuart, Peppe Barra
Year: 2002
Run Time: 108 minutes
Summary: Despite guidance from the Blue Fairy, and the love of his father, Gepetto, a wooden puppet's curious spirit leads him into one wild adventure after another.
Format: DVD |
Title: Il posto
Director: Ermanno Olmi
Starring: Loredana Detto, Sandro Panseri
Year: 1961
Run Time: 93 minutes
Summary: Domenico and Antonietta are two suburban Italian youths who meet while seeking "a job for life" from a big city corporation. After a bizarre screening process made up of written exams, physical agility exercises, and interview questions such as "Do you drink to forget your troubles?" (Domenico and Antonietta are no older than 17 or 18), they land jobs in the "Technical Division" and "Typing Services" respectively. From there, Domenico works as an underutilized errand boy until a clerk position is vacated by the death of an older employee. Domenico finally takes his place in a room of 12 other clerks with a manager overseeing them from a desk at the head of the room. The film ends as Domenico ponders his fate, from behind his tiny desk at the back of the small windowless room, listening to the sound of the mimeograph machine as it runs off carbon copies next to the manager's desk.
Format: DVD |
Title: Santa Maradona
Director:
Marco Ponti
Starring: Stegano Accorsi and
Anita Caparioli
Year: 2002
Run
Time: 96 minutes
Acclaim/Award:
Winner of two David Di Donatello Awards
Summary:
Andrea, 27 year old, just graduated from University with a useless
degree. He spends his days looking for a job and killing time
talking endlessly with room-mate Bart and Indo-Italian friend
Lucia. Everything changes when he meets Dolores, a beautiful
teacher and actress.
Format: DVD |
Title: The Seduction of Mimi
Director: Lina Wertmüller
Starring:
Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato and Agostina
Belli
Year: 1997
Run Time:
89 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Winner
of Cannes Film Festival, Best Director
Summary:
A Sicilian laborer decides not to vote for the Mafia’s
candidate and loses his job, wife and home. The predicaments
that arise throw his life into a pile of comical complexities.
Format: DVD |
Title: The Son’s Room
Director: Nanni Moretti
Starring:
Nanni Moretti, Laura Morante, Jasmine Trinca and Giuseppe Sanfelice
Year: 2001
Run Time: 100
minutes
Acclaim/Award: Winner of Best Picture
from Cannes Film Festival
Summary: The
story of a man facing the greatest challenge of his life. A
tragedy hits home and turns his life upside down and he must
find the courage to deal with his own grief while giving strength
to those who need him most.
Format: DVD
|
Title: La Strada
Director: Federico Fellini
Starring: Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart, Aldo Silvani, livia Venturini
Year: 1956
Run Time: 108 minute
Summary: Gelsomina is sold by her very poor mother to Zampanò, an itinerant strongman. She follows him on the road ("la strada") and helps him during his shows. Zampanò ill-treats her. She meets "The Fool", a funambulist. She feels like going with him, but he puts confusion in her mind by pointing out that perhaps Zampanò is in fact in love with her ...
Format: DVD |
Title: St. Michael had a Rooster
Director: Paolo Taviani & Vittorio Taviani
Starring: Giulio Brogi, Daniele Dublino, Renato Cestie, Vito Cipolla, Virgina Giuffini
Year: 1975
Run Time: 90 minute
Summary: Sentenced to life imprisonment for illegal activities, Italian International member Giulio Manieri holds on to his political ideals while struggling against madness in the loneliness of his prison cell.
Format: DVD |
Title: La terra trema
Director: Mario Martone & Jacopo Quadri
Starring:
Year: 1998
Run Time: 50 minute
Summary: Documentary
Format: DVD |
Title: Three Brothers
Director: Francesco Rosi
Starring: Philippe Noiret, Michele Placido, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Andréa Ferréol
Year: 1981
Run Time: 113 minute
Summary: In a farmhouse in southern Italy, an old woman dies. Her husband summons their sons: from Rome, Raffaele, a judge facing a political case for which he risks assassination; from Naples, the religious and ideological Rocco, a counselor at a correctional institute for boys; from Turin, Nicola, a factory worker involved in labor disputes. Once home, each encounters the past and engages in reveries of what may come: Raffaele imagines his death, Rocco dreams of lifting the youth of Naples out of violence, drugs, and corruption, Nicola pictures embracing his estranged wife. Meanwhile, the old man and his young granddaughter explore the rhythms of the farm and grieve together.
Format: DVD |
Title: Blowup
Director:
Michelangelo Antonioni's
Starring: Vanessa
Redgrave, David Hemmings and Sarah Miles
Year:
1986
Run Time: 1hr 45minutes
Summary:
Peek in London's sexy, steamy fashion world where seduction
are as free as young girls' spiritand the music is devastating
as a drug.
Format: VHS |
Title: Two women
Director: Vittoria Di Sica
Starring: Jean Paul Belmond,Sophia Loren
Year: 1961
Run Time: 99minutes
Summary: A woman with her 14 year old daughter
became the focus of an attack by retreating German soldiers.
Format: VHS |
Title: 1900
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Robert
De Niro, Gerard Depardieu & Dominique Sanda.
Year:
1976
Run Time: 105 minutes
Summary:
It is both a vast of history of 20th Italy and an intimate
protrait of two families.
Format: VHS |
Title: Last Tango in Paris
Director: Bernardo Betolucci
Starring: Maria Schneiner, Jean-Pierre Leaud
& Massimo Girotti.
Year: 1972
Run Time: 128 minutes
Summary: American widower in Pari, desolate
at the unexpleained suicide of his wife, plunges into an erotic
affair with a young French girl half his age.
Format: VHS |
Title: L’Ultimo Bacio English:
The Last Kiss
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Starring: Stefano Accorsi, Giovanna Mezzogiorno
and Stefania Ssandrelli
Year: 2001
Run Time: 115 minutes
Summary:
Carlo's life is thrown into a tailspin when his longtime girlfriend
Giulia announces she's pregnant.
Format:
DVD |
Title: Umberto D.
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Starring: Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari, Ilena Simova, Elena Rea
Year: 1955
Run Time: 89 minute
Summary: Umberto Ferrari, aged government-pensioner, attends a street demonstration held by his fellow pensioners. The police dispense the crowd and Unberto returns to his cheap furnished room which he shares with his dog Flick. Umberto's lone friend is Maria, servant of the boarding house. She is a simple girl who is pregnant by one of two soldiers and neither will admit to being the father. When Umberto's landlady, Antonia, demands the rent owed her and threatens eviction if she is not paid, Umberto tries desperately to raise the money by selling his books and watch. He is too proud to beg in the streets and can not get a loan from any of his acquaintances. He contracts a sore throat, is admitted to a hospital and this puts a delay on his financial difficulty. Discharged, he finds that his dog is gone and, following a frantic search, locates him in the city dog pound. His room has been taken over by the landlady and the now-homeless Unberto determines to find a place for his beloved dog, and then kill himself. Unsuccessful, he resolves that his dog must die with him and he stands in the path of a train, with his dog in his arms.
Format: DVD |
| Italian Films Located in the Library |
Title: Il Postino English:
The Postman
Directed by: Michael
Radford
Year: 1994
Starring:
Philippe Noiret, Massimo Troisi, Maria Grazia Cucinotta
Summary: The life of the fisherman Mario changes
dramatically when the famous Chilean writer Pablo Neruda settles
on his little Italian island. Living in exile becuase of his
political beliefs, Neruda needs a postman to deliver the huge
quantities of mail sent to him by his admirers and Mario takes
the job since he hates fishing anyway. The two become friends
and Neruda helps the shy and clumsy Mario to win the heart of
Beatrice, the beautiful waitress at the village's inn, by showing
him the beauty and power of poetry.
Run time: 108
min.
Format: VHS
Library Call
Number: PQ8098.29.K3 A73132 1995 |
Title: Blowup
Directed
by: Michelangelo Antonioni
Year: 1966
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, David
Hemmings
Summary: A photographer who is
talented but aimless has photographed violence and pain without
feeling any involvement. When he takes pictures of a couple
in a park, he finds that he may have discovered a mystery, one
that insists on involving him.
Run time: 111
min.
Format: VHS
Library Call
Number: PN1995.9.F67 B56 1991 |
Title: Stragia del Ragno
English: The Spider’s Stratagem
Directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci
Year:
1970
Starring: Giulio Brogi, Alida Valli,
Pippo Campanini
Summary: Athos Magnani,
a young researcher, returns to Tara, where his father was killed
before his birth, at the request of Draifa. The father, also
named Athos Magnani and looking exactly like the son, was killed
by a fascist in 1936 -- or so says Draifa (his mistress), the
town statue, and everyone in town. As the son untangles the
web of lies this story is constructed from, he finds himself
ensnared in the same web.
Run time: 100
min.
Format: VHS
Library Call
Number: PN1997.S82 |
|
