1960s

Synopsis
A seminal Quebec erotic film about a curious girl who leaves her convent to explore the Montréal hippy scene, becomes a prostitute and meets her true love who doesn’t know she’s a hooker, that started erotic film genre in Canada.Read More »

Storyline
During World War II, an American who sympathizes with the Nazi cause defects to Germany, where he is greeted as a hero and given a job broadcasting propaganda to the West. What the Nazis don’t know is that he is actually a double agent.Read More »

Quote:
Lorenzo, a student at Salamanca in the late 1950s, has just spent a summer in England where he has discovered new ways of life and other horizons as well as meeting and falling in love Berta, the daughter of an exile who has never seen Spain. Upon his return, the traditional atmosphere of his family, routine relations with his friends and his girlfriend, and the tedium of life in the city become more and more overwhelming. He writes to his idealized Berta, still living in England, in a series of letters to try to convey to her what life is like in Spain and his desire to leave his provincial family behind and discover life on his own. Although the lure to break free is foremost on his mind, he decides to marry a young woman from a similar background to live the life of a country squire. However, a trip to Madrid opens up other possibilities.Read More »

Quote:
Eddie Pedak, a convicted criminal, has a steady job, a wife and daughter and he puts a down payment on a boat. He also has a police detective and brother after him, the first believes Eddie shot him, the second wants him for one last heist.Read More »

Synopsis
An inveterate gigolo, Tony Maréchal has just one skill: the ability to seduce beautiful women. He uses this skill to sweet talk himself into a trip to a skiing resort, under the patronage of a wealthy business man and his mistress. Here, Tony is hooked by a man-mad baroness who invites him on a pleasure cruise to Tahiti. The dream holiday soon turns into Tony’s worst nightmare…Read More »

The legendary Cinema Novo director Joaquim Pedro de Andrade made his feature debut with this mesmerizing 1962 documentary about an even greater Brazilian legend: Mane Garrincha, the phenomenal striker from a desperately poor village who somehow turned his bent and misshapen knees into a remarkable asset. Joaquim Pedro’s work has the hallmarks of an essay film. It makes the methodical case for the role of soccer in the lives of Brazilians, and then tries to place Garrincha — who stuck to his provincial roots and beliefs even after achieving superstardom — within the context of a country struggling to find its place in the world.
— Bilge Ebiri (The Village Voice)Read More »

VITTORIO COTTAFAVI
pubblicato su “Alias” – Il manifesto del 26 maggio 2007
Lorenzo Esposito e Donatello Fumarola

Vittorio Cottafavi – La conquista dell’immagine (televisiva)

Quando, fra il 1981 e il 1985, Vittorio Cottafavi firma i suoi due ultimi film prodotti dalla Rai, Maria Zef e Il diavolo sulle colline, la televisione è già lo specchio di un mondo in frantumi. La riduzione di spazi di pensiero, parallela all’occupazione dello spazio-tempo da parte dell’ideologia dell’inserzione, riguarda da vicino la rabbia e il dolore di queste immagini ultime. Immagini perfette, che dell’esperienza cine-televisiva, forniscono la lezione magistrale attraverso il racconto profetico della fine della civiltà contadina (Maria Zef), e si innestano nel punto nevralgico della crisi – come dimostrano i nostri giorni, mai rientrata del tutto – politica, economica e sociale italiana (la Torino del 1937 raccontata da Pavese ne Il diavolo sulle colline). Read More »

PLOT & Review:
Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71) knows no obstacles (or scruples) when he has to create a work of art or win the heart (and the rest) of a woman.
R. Freda does a genuinely popular cinema, practicing many genres, from drama to horror. Faced with a film of adventure, as here, he can be concise and engaging.
(Morandini)Read More »

Outside at night. Tower of lodgings. A syncopated jazz accompanies the successive appearances of young people in front of the camera. Zim, delivered to the police by locals for stealing gasoline, ends up in jail. On the day of his release, he meets Jean-Pierre, who has just been released from the same Parisian jail. The two youngsters become friends. Back in the suburb, Zim decides to find a job and tries to convince Jean-Pierre to go with him… without success. Far from New Wave movies which are becoming more and more bourgeois,
“Les Cœurs verts” is the first fiction film centred on the youth of the housing estates, played by a real gang of greasers, these “bad boys” from the working class, who were then in the news.Read More »