Italian

Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) has worked hard all his life to achieve a certain standing and success as a lawyer in Rome. He is pleased to be able to offer the fruits of his success to his son Michele (Massimo Troisi), and is perplexed and distressed that his unambitious son has no interest in any of these things. Michele is serving a term in the Italian military in the port town of Civitavecchia, and Marcello is visiting him there. Here he meets Michele’s salty girlfriend Loredana (Anne Parillaud). The father and son share some meals and explore their differences.Read More »

from the Roberto Curti article at esotika’s site:
“Decolonized Africa as a modern-day Little Big Horn, white men as general Custer’s soldiers: that’s how Cavallone described the concept that spawned Afrika (1973). It’s an uncomfortable, uncommercial premise that shows how little Cavallone cared of commercial issues. The theme is once again that of cultural/political clash, in a country – Ethiopia – that’s experiencing a sort of “new birth” after the end of colonialism. Cavallone echoed the confusion and identity crisis of a whole country with those of a group of Europeans who chose to hide themselves in the Third World rather than solve their existential problems.Read More »

Northern Italy, late sixties. In the midst of the family crisis, with the parents on the brink of separation, little Luciano is forced to move to a religious college. The stern father, long distracted by a lover, fears that the mother’s influence could harm her son in such a delicate period. But Luciano ill-suited to life in college. While the rigid priests stifle every momentum, the boy, who is homesick, closes more and more in himself and can not make friends with his companions.Read More »

Quote:
The COVID-19 pandemic forced many to stay at home, preventing people from meeting each other in real life. In the absence of any physical connection, this short explores alternative forms of contact among neighbors by making use of an old 16mm camera, a zoom lens, and a few meters of expired film.Read More »

Lucille, a paralyzed girl, is the scapegoat of her sister and her cousin, Josine and Elisa. During a game that goes too far, they accidentally kill the lover of Elisa. Trying to make Lucille look guilty, while killing her, they discover the frightful secret that would explain the vegetative state.Read More »

Aldo Fabrizi plays a widowed school janitor with an infant son. The film depicts the joys and sorrows of father and son, as they journey through life. Maybe we could say that this is something like an Italian Goodbye, Mr. Chips; it is certainly no less affecting. Watch for author/director Mario Soldati in a small, but crucial, part as one of the professors at the school, where father and son live, study and work.Read More »

From imdb:
Henry Davis and Zelda are a couple with peculiar sexual tastes. In order to have more freedom, they send their daughter Ingrid to study in a school away from home. They have a relationship with Ursula but, after some time, when they get tired of her, they involve Christian and his wife Clarissa in their erotic games. When Ingrid comes to spend some time home, her presence becomes the catalyst of profound transformationsRead More »

“Two U.S. army deserters of the Vietnam War take refuge in Copenhagen, trying by all means to find a job to survive. Once there one of them becomes schizophrenic, recalling the murders and torture that took place on the front. He has many outbursts and is hidden in the home of a psychiatrist who is trying to heal with unorthodox methods.”Read More »

Quote:
The Italian filmmaker Paolo Benvenuti is little known outside of Italy, although several recent festival retrospectives have begun opening the world’s eyes to this iconoclastic director. His 1992 work Confortorio is set during one long night in 1736 Rome, as a group of Catholic high priests attempts to “convert” two Jewish thieves who have been sentenced to death. “Every death has to be comforted; every soul has to be saved,” says one priest; the two stubborn thieves, however, have other plans for their (after)lives, even as their “saviors” move from religious fervor to torture.Read More »