Italy

The time is the Russian Revolution. The place is a country burdened with fear – the midnight knock at the door, the bread hidden against famine, the haunted eyes of the fleeing, the grublike fat of the appeasers and oppressors. In a bitter struggle of the individual against the collective, three people stand forth with the mark of the unconquered in their bearing: Kira, who wants to be a builder, and the two men who love her – Leo, an aristocrat, and Andrei, a Communist. In their tensely dramatic story, Ayn Rand shows what the theories of Communism mean in practice. We the Living is not a story of politics but of the men and women who have to struggle for existence behind the Red banners and slogans.Read More »

The sympathetically drawn, unthreatening gay characters here are practically an advertisement for this hot political topic. Abroad, the film’s biggest selling point, as with “Steam: The Turkish Bath” and “Ignorant Fairies,” is its relaxed, modern approach to gay characters and lifestyle, unusual for an Italian film. The mix of straight and gay stories, though, should broaden its appeal to a slightly wider niche.Read More »

Synopsis:
Margaret and Lisa, high school friends, take the night train from Germany to Verona to spend Christmas with Lisa’s family. They flirt mildly with male passengers, including two randy delinquents in their 20s, Blackie and Curly. The four of them end up in a first-class cabin with a well-dressed woman of about 30 who has pornographic photographs in her valise. Egged on by the woman, the thugs and a male visitor to the cabin menace and then assault Margaret and Lisa. Meanwhile, we also see Christmas Eve and morning scenes at Lisa’s home, where her parents are polite to each other while discussing divorce. On Christmas morning, they go to the station to meet the girls. Will they be on the train?Read More »

Baby Love is a stepdaughter of an queen of the castle of Balsorano.The queen wants to sell Baby Love during the auction to the highest bidder.There are four bidders:a Chinese,an American,a Russian and a Sicilian.They want virginal Baby Love,but after successful auction the girl decides to lose her virginity with the queen’s lover Read More »

Synopsis:
Jane lives in London with Richard, her boyfriend. When she was five, her mother was murdered, and she recently lost a baby in a car crash. She’s plagued by nightmares of a knife-wielding, blue-eyed man. Richard, a pharmaceutical salesman, thinks the cure is vitamins; Jane’s sister Barbara, who works for a psychiatrist, recommends analysis; a neighbor Jane’s just met promises that if Jane participates in a Black Mass, all her fears will disappear. Jane tries the Mass, but it seems to bring her nightmares to life. Is there any way out for her short of death or a living Hell?Read More »

When a psychopath (François Montagut, DANGEROUS LIAISONS) butchers the proprietor of a candy shop, Detective Mike Livet (Tomas Arana, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST) assumes that the killer made off with the victim’s as a souvenir. When the ear winds up in the refrigerator of newly widowed Tracy Grant (Joanna Pacula, THE KISS), Livet suspects that the grisly gift may have something to do with the death of her husband Abe (whose corpse was disinterred from its grave the same night). When a woman is butchered in a shopping mall bathroom and a severed hand winds up on Tracy’s doorstep, Livet looks into Abe’s shady past and discovers sex, drugs, and a stalker who did not take Abe’s nuptials all too well.Read More »

Synopsis:
A mosaic of several intertwined stories questioning the meaning of life, love and hope, set during the last six days in the life of Eluana Englaro, a young woman who spent 17 years in a vegetative state.

Review:
Following a car accident, Eluana Englaro lay in a coma for 17 years. Doctors who assessed her described her as being in a persistent vegetative state, doomed never to awaken, but of course there were many who campaigned to keep her alive, whether in hope of a miracle or simply because they felt that what life she had left must be preserved. In February 2009, the decision was made to remove her feeding tube and allow her to die naturally. A court battle ensued, with the matter going all the way to parliament, exposing a deeply divided nation.Read More »

Duncombe is the UK Consul General in Florence, Italy. He becomes a widower when his two sons, Andrew and Miles, are still young kids. Andrew, the eldest, apparently reacts with adult maturity to the loss of his mother, looking after little Miles, an attempt to find a way out of such premature heart-crushing loss. Andrew gets constantly blamed for Miles’ mischievous behavior, but he valiantly takes said blame as his personality is that of a grown up, or at least that is what he tries to be. The father, given his mandate, is often absent, both physically and emotionally, especially toward Andrew. It will be at the end that Duncombe will acknowledge his mistakes, finding himself at a father’s point of no return.Read More »

Synopsis:
Aging small-time con man Augusto, who swindles peasants, works with two younger men: Roberto, who wants to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Bruno, nicknamed Picasso, who has a wife and daughter and wants to paint. Augusto avoids the personal entanglements, spending money at clubs seeking the good life. His attitude changes when he runs into his own daughter, whom he rarely sees, and realizes she’s now a young woman and in need of his help to continue her studies. His usual partners are away, so he goes in with others to run a swindle, and they aren’t forgiving when he claims he’s given the money back to their mark. They leave him beaten, robbed, and alone.Read More »