Enrico Mattei had been a powerful and charismatic public figure in Italy in the immediate postwar era. Appointed to wind up the Italian Petroleum Agency, he had instead expanded it and used the new company, ENI, to both explore new sources of energy for Italy and to create a personal power base within the Italian political scene. Machiavellian and idealistic at the same time, Mattei openly used the company’s funds to bribe politicians of all persuasions to support its ventures. An energetic and astute entrepreneur, Mattei resented the big American companies’ control over oil prices and so initiated direct discussions with Russia and with a number of Arab countries in order to procure cheaper oil for Italy and, in the process, a better deal for the producing countries. Thus, by the early 1960s, Mattei had become a thorn in the side of both the American oil companies and the American government and his political machinations had also created a number of powerful enemies at home. Then, in 1962, at the very height of his power and influence, Mattei was killed when his private plane crashed just outside Milan. The official version held that the plane had simply gone down in bad weather but this ignored the testimony of a number of eyewitnesses who claimed that the plane had exploded in mid-air before plunging to earth.

Il caso Mattei Rosi employs a non-linear investigative mode which allows him to bring together, often paratactically or in juxtaposition, a range of disparate materials, both real and fictionally recreated, in an attempt to get closer to the truth. Rosi’s strategy prompts the viewer to notice a number of possible connections and motivated complicities but without supplying any exclusive or definitive interpretation. Significantly, at one point in the film the investigation of Mattei’s death ten years earlier comes to be intertwined with the contemporary investigation of the disappearance of a journalist who was working with Rosi on the film at the Sicilian end, exploring the possible involvement of the Mafia. The journalist, De Mauro, in fact was never seen again, so that the film, quite literally, created more questions than it answered.

Il.Caso.Mattei.AKA.The.Mattei.Affair.1972.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC.2.0.x264-SHR.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 56 min
Size: 	4.55 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	5 339 kb/s
BPP: 	0.107
Audio
#1:  	Italian 2.0ch AAC LC @ 253 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/BAAAD98B0DA742A/Il.Caso.Mattei.AKA.The.Mattei.Affair.1972.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC.2.0.x264-SHR.mkv

Language(s):Italian
Subtitles:English (Hardcoded)

The post Francesco Rosi – Il caso Mattei AKA The Mattei Affair (1972) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Primo Levi’s modern day odyssey from the concentration camp to his home in Italy. The Truce is a film about homecoming.

The horror and the suffering of the concentration camps has been well documented. What interested the director, Francesco Rosi, was to bring to the screen what Levi succeeded in doing so extraordinarily well in his book: recounting, through the tales of his remarkable adventures, the process of reawakening, of coming back to life, and of the re-acquisition of hope, through the experience of daily events, small and large, natural and joyous, the cumulative effect of which is to constantly affirm the superiority of love over death.

I would like to believe in something,
something beyond the death that undid you.
I would like to describe the intensity
with which, already overwhelmed,
we longed in those days to be able
to walk together again
free beneath the sun.
[Primo Levi, 9 January 1946]

The.Truce.1997.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 57 min
Size: 	1.73 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	712x428 ~> 760x428
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	2 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.273
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/F5BCAECADA95A47/The.Truce.1997.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Francesco Rosi – La tregua AKA The Truce (1997) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
In the sporting world, bullfighting remains the epitome of contradiction, where grace begets gore and patience rewards ego. Such unsettling dichotomies haunt Francesco Rosi’s The Moment of Truth, a dangerously alive film that jumps down from the stands and into the ring where Spanish toreros dance a prolonged tango with beasts whose one instinct is to gorge whatever body part they can. In an attempt to grasp a sense of immediacy from convention, Rosi leans heavily on a gripping hand-held aesthetic, seemingly pinning his fluid camera to the flamboyant garb of his strutting protagonists as they tempt fate on a daily basis. While much of The Moment of Truth can be surmised within a very generic sports-genre arc (rise and fall, temptation of riches), this is most definitely a film that lives and breathes in the details of experience, and it’s hard not to admire its unabashed dedication to controlled chaos and incompleteness despite the difficult subject matter.

The Moment of Truth opens with a slow-moving avalanche of packed bodies and ambient noise, tracking a procession for the San Fermín festival moving through the streets of Pamplona, the small but infamous Spanish town in the Andalusian countryside. Large groups of devout parishioners lift an epic gold statue littered with candles and orate draping down a cramped alleyway, reaching an open square where participants take turns dodging rampaging bulls. The scene is absolute madness, with no structure or elegance in sight. When Rosi isn’t shooting from horn level, he cuts above to an expansive bird’s-eye shot and watches the gigantic animals level their human prey in striking observational mode. One face inevitably stands out from the crowd, a poised young man named Miguel (Miguel Mateo), who not only avoids getting battered in the mayhem, but also manages to kill one of the bulls. Unscathed yet unimpressed with his own accomplishment, Miguel returns home to his family’s poor excuse for a farm, where his father circles endlessly on a horse drawn plow caught in a permanent state of apathy.

It quickly becomes clear that this life of poverty is driving Miguel mad, and he quickly decides to leave the countryside for the bustling urban metropolis of Barcelona in order to find economic freedom. At first, Miguel’s vision of the future appears quite contained, focused primarily on getting a trade job with long-term security. But Miguel’s blue-collar experience quickly sours, and he turns to the art of bullfighting to find fame and fortune. This professional transition isn’t based on passion but garnering wealth, and elements of The Moment of Truth are geared toward demystifying the artistry and glamour of the sport by framing it as a means to an end Miguel knowingly exploits, natural talent be damned. Guided by a series of male mentors, some earnest, like his original bullfighting instructor (famous teacher Pedro Basauri), and others obviously self-serving and manipulative (such as his agent, played by José Gomez Sevillano), Miguel becomes a star living inside a pressure-cooker lifestyle. In what becomes a grueling schedule, he must travel everywhere from the glorious arenas of Madrid to the farthest reaches of the Spanish countryside in order to sustain his place of public prestige.

The process eventually becomes too much for this machine-like matador, and Miguel begins to foresee disaster on the horizon, a feeling that begins to materialize in the form of physical ailments and emotional disintegration. By this point, the film’s constant impetus on the gory details and procedures of bullfighting begins to exhaust the viewer as well. A correlation represents itself in the sobering details of Miguel’s hollowed out eyes and aching body, paralleled by the blood-drenched fur of the bull’s neck and pools of red in the yellow sand. If one truth rings loudest, it’s that both man and beast eventually wear down from the constant combat of the ring. In this sense, The Moment of Truth essentially deals with the fear of working incredibly hard and coming away with nothing, a life wasted on due diligence and honor. Since actor Miguel Mateo was a real-life matador in Spain, nicknamed “Miguelin” by his countrymen, you can sense his performance is centered on this state of confused and tragic passion gone awry.

Throughout The Moment of Truth, there’s an emphasis on methodology and ideology of the bullfighting profession. Here, poetic wisdoms—like “you must think only of the bull” and “the bull is sacred”—are often used to justify the more sinister undercurrents of greed and sacrifice, even when the bullfighting scenes themselves attain a level horrific purity beyond words. Furthering the theme of contradiction to include matters of economy and tradition, Rosi positions these near-metaphysical moments against the corruption and manipulation examined by many sports films, from Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday to John Sayles’s Eight Men Out. Exhaustion seems to be at the center of those movies, and The Moment of Truth is no different. In the end, blood sports of all kinds are unforgiving, even to those seemingly untouchable warriors crowned into sainthood by the mass delusions of their peers.

1.79GB | 1h 47m | 1024×432 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/2AF35DE3B202894/Francesco_Rosi_-_(1965)_The_Moment_of_Truth.mkv

Language:Italian
Subtitles:English

The post Francesco Rosi – Il momento della verità AKA The Moment of Truth (1965) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

An elegy of exile and an epic immersion in the world of rural Italy during the regime of Benito Mussolini, Francesco Rosi’s sublime adaptation of the memoirs of the painter, physician, and political activist Carlo Levi brings a monument of twentieth-century autobiography to the screen with quiet grace and solemn beauty. Banished to a desolate southern town for his anti-Fascist views, Levi (Gian Maria Volontè) discovers an Italy he never knew existed, a place where ancient folkways and superstitions still hold sway, and that gradually transforms his understanding of both himself and his country. Presented for the first time on home video in its original full-length, four-part version, Christ Stopped at Eboli ruminates profoundly on the political and philosophical rifts within Italian society—between North and South, tradition and modernity, Fascism and freedom—and the essential humanity that transcends all.

3.36GB | 3h 41m | 760×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/C7860691B6A0826/Christ.Stopped.at.Eboli.1979.TV.Cut.576p.Bluray.AAC.1.0.x264-SaL.mkv

Language:Italian
Subtitles:English

The post Francesco Rosi – Cristo si è fermato a Eboli AKA Christ Stopped at Eboli [Full TV Cut] (1979) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis
In 1950, 28-year-old outlaw Salvatore Giuliano is found gunned down in a Sicilian courtyard. Little is as it seems. The film moves back and forth between the late 1940s, when Giuliano and other reprobates were recruited by separatist politicians to do their fighting, and the days leading up to and following Giuliano’s death. After Sicily’s self-rule is declared, will the outlaws be pardoned as promised? And why does Giuliano order his gang to fire on a peaceful May Day rally? Police, Carabinieri, and Mafia have their uses for him. There’s a trial after his death: will the truth come out or does the code of silence help protect those in power? (IMDB)

Extras included:

“The Filmmaker and the Labyrinth” documentary (55:06)
“Francesco Rosi on Salvatore Giuliano” interview with director Francesco Rosi (12:05)
“The Sicilian Robin Hood” interview with Salvatore Giuliano’s nephew Guiseppe (14:23)
“Salvatore Giuliano and the Mafia” interview with journalist and Sicilian Mafia expert Attilio Bolzoni (10:00)
Theatrical Trailer (4:33)

3.06GB | 2h 3mn | 1024×554 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/1922695FF6D26C9/Salvatore_Giuliano.1962.576p.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/C76182CA6297C7E/Salvatore_Giuliano_Extras.rar

Language:Italian
Subtitles:English

The post Francesco Rosi – Salvatore Giuliano [+Extras] (1962) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Plot (minor spoilers):
The film starts with the murder of Investigating Judge Vargas in Palermo, amongst a climate of demonstrations, strikes and political tension between the Left and the Christian Democratic government. The subsequent investigation failing, the police assign to the case Inspector Rogas (Lino Ventura), who has firm faith in the integrity of the judiciary. While he is starting his investigation, two further judges are killed. All victims turn out to have worked together on several cases. After Rogas discovers evidence of corruption surrounding the three government officials, he is encouraged by superiors nonetheless to trail the “crazy lunatic” who is murdering the judges. Rogas seeks three men who had been wrongfully convicted by the murdered judges. He is joined by a journalist friend working for a far-left newspaper.

Meanwhile another investigating judge is killed, and eyewitnesses see two young revolutionaries running away from the scene. Rogas, close to finding his man, is demoted, and told to work with the political division to pin the crimes on the revolutionary Leftist terrorist groups. Rogas discovers that his phone is tapped. He warns the Supreme Court’s president (Max von Sydow) that he is most likely to be the next victim. Music from a party in the same building leads to Rogas discovering the Minister of Justice (Fernando Rey) at the party with many revolutionary leaders, amongst them the editor of the revolutionary paper. There are further murders, and amongst rising tensions between revolutionaries and the government (which mobilises the army) Rogas himself is blamed for the murders by the chief of police.

1.72GB | 2h 0m | 1013×548 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/A7EF209A5DF5A8F/Cadaveri_Eccellenti_(Illustrious_Corpses)_1976.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/E1817924B42AF7B/Cadaveri_Eccellenti_(Illustrious_Corpses)_1976.srt

Laguage:Italian
Subtitle:English

The post Francesco Rosi – Cadaveri eccellenti AKA Illustrious Corpses [24fps PAL restore] (1976) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis
Edmund Kean is a popular and flamboyant British actor of the nineteenth century, addicted however to vices and in debt. He argues with the Prince of Wales, his companion in intemperance, the wife of the Danish ambassador, but eventually falls in love with Anna, a young but promising beginning actress.

1.18GB | 1h 19mn | 704×544 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/F83CB3ACEAC096D/Kean.1956.Gassman.Rosi.mkv
http://nitroflare.com/view/6330AE574A12D67/Kean.1956.Gassman.Rosi.Eng.srt
http://nitroflare.com/view/765E2549261CEE6/Kean.1956.Gassman.Rosi.Ita.srt

Language(s):Italian
Subtitles:English & Italian

The post Vittorio Gassman & Francesco Rosi – Kean aka Kean, Genio e Sregolatezza aka Kean, Genius and Recklessness (1956) first appeared on Cinema of the World.