Italy

Marcus, a wealthy widowed English author brings Elise, his beautiful young bride, to his isolated home in rural Spain. Elise’s new life of comfort turns nightmarish when her 12-year-old step-son begins behaving more than a little strangely. The brilliant and lonely child is out to destroy all the love and trust between his father and step-mother with his surreptitious pranks. He revels in exploiting and feeding Elise’s paranoia about him and plots to drive a wedge deeper between her and Marcus…or is the poor child simply the victim of a neurotic woman’s overactive imagination?Read More »

Synopsis:
Maurizio Merli stars as Inspector Mariani who has been transferred to the toughest department in Italy. Of course he has his own way of dealing with the crime element that pushes police regulations to the breaking point. Also stars Janet Agren, Ettore Manni, Chris Avram & Mariangela Giordano.Read More »

An artist and his assistant encounter obstacles on their way to watch a film in Tübingen.Read More »

Vittorio Cottafavi’s 1971 adaptation of the Sophocles play (he had adapted it earlier in 1958). Fans of Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub should be most impressed.Read More »

Vita coi figli is a 1990 Italian television film directed by Dino Risi. It marks the screen debut of Monica Bellucci.
The story of one man dealing with an unexpected series of events, discovering his youth once again in the relationship with a much younger woman and finally coming to grips with his age, and the fact that he hasn’t been there for his family like he should have.Read More »

Philippe, a bisexual painter, is living through a crisis. He is torn between his love for his wife and his attraction for young men. In Ethiopia, he meets Frank, a young homosexual.Read More »

The events, between reality and dream of some inhabitants of a village during the feast of the patron saint: the crazy wife of a communist cell leader, the frustrated wife of a farmer, a slut, the priest, a father who has incestuous relationships with his daughter. The party becomes the catalyst element to make all the contradictions of the people explode and from a religious celebration it becomes pagan.Read More »

Stefano Vicinelli and his girlfriend Diana fall two weeks behind on their hotel rent and face having their luggage and car impounded until they can pay the bill. Conveniently for them, a distraught woman in the room right above theirs leaps to her death from the window. Using that as a distraction, the lovebirds sneak out and take off. Running low on money, they pool what little cash they do have and go to the racetrack. Stefano encounters a crazed woman wearing sunglasses who demands he give her a key so she can unlock a door. After she calms down, she proposes a deal with him: She’ll help him win money in the horse race if he’ll help her “get past the gate.” Having no clue what she’s even talking about, Stefano reluctantly agrees and bets on her suggestion. After the horse wins and he collects, he feels obliged to accompany the strange woman – who introduces herself as Countess Angela – back to her home.Read More »

Quote:
“Tretti is the madman that Italian cinema needs,” proclaimed Federico Fellini, for whom Tretti worked as an assistant on Il Bidone. His first film as director (sadly, he made only four) was The Law of the Trumpet, an absurdist comedy about Celestino (Angelo Paccagnini), a young ex-con who takes a job in a trumpet factory and falls for the lovely Maria (Eugenia Tretti), only to lose her to his boss, Mr. Liborio, upon learning that Maria’s father owns a brass mine. For the roles of Liborio and three other male characters, Tretti cast his neighbor Maria Boto, an elderly woman who explains in a prologue that she’s never seen a film in her life, before imitating Leo the MGM lion. A truly bizarre finale caps this singular work, whose fans included Michelangelo Antonioni.Read More »