Film★ 5.22006Marcello, una vita dolceAfter shooting to fame with Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” (1960), actor Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996) starred in more than 160 films in his nearly half-a-century career. Directors Mario Canale and Annarosa Morri look into the melancholic charm of one of the most famous Italian actors through interviews with his two daughters, Barbara and Chiara; directors Fellini and Luchino Visconti; actresses Claudia Cardinale and Anouk Aimee; and in archival footage of Mastroianni himself. The subject matter ranges from Mastroianni’s passion for kidney-bean pasta and his addiction to the telephone to his famous laziness, humility and talent. Shown in black-and-white, Mastroianni — elegantly holding a cigarette in between his fingers — is undeniably the dandy.Open details →
Film1966Cinéastes de notre temps : Pier Paolo Pasoliniwide-ranging conversations with the irector as well as interviews with the actors and collaborators who helpe shape his cinemtic universe over the course of the sixties.Open details →
Film★ 6.41952The Bandit of Tacca del LupoIn 19th century southern Italy (near Melfi, Basilicata), a small force of soldiers fight in the hills against the bandits who are holding their country to ransom.Open details →
Film★ 4.41976Black VelvetCrystal, a wealthy, scorned woman living in a massive Egyptian palace with her daughter Magda, finds commiseration in a dried-up Hollywood expat who surrounds himself with singing children.Open details →
Film★ 5.61974The Woman with Red BootsAn elderly millionaire manipulates an avant-garde writer and a happily married man.Open details →
Film★ 4.01974CharlotteStarting as an investigation, the film begins with the discovery of a murdered young woman. Gradually we go back in time to realize that this crime is altogether the logical continuation of a philosophy of life where neither sex nor death are taboo, and where a lust for pushing limits meets it ultimate conclusion.Open details →
Film★ 6.31974Lancelot of the LakeHaving failed in their quest for the Holy Grail, the knights of the Round Table return to Camelot, their number reduced to a mere handful. Seeing a rift developing between Lancelot and Mordred, Arthur urges his knights to bury their differences and become friends. However, the king is unaware that Lancelot is having an affair with his queen, Guinevere. Lancelot is torn between his duty to his king and his love for the queen, whilst Mordred is determined to use his infidelity to destroy him.Open details →
Film★ 4.01974Codice d'amore orientaleThe master, telling a lot of love or erotic oriental tales, teaches the secrets of the most natural, complete and satisfactory copulation.Open details →
Film★ 5.91973The Man Called NoonNoon is a gunfighter who has become amnesiac. Helped by Rimes, an outlaw who has befriended him, he tries to figure out who he is actually. It gradually appears that his wife and kid have been murdered. As time goes by, Noon also recalls a fortune hidden somewhere. Niland, a scheming judge, and Peg Cullane, a greedy will do everything to prevent Noon and Rimes from achieving their end while Fan Davidge, a woman living in a ghost town, will support them.Open details →
Film★ 5.71973The HeroesFour soldiers and a beautiful Greek nurse, thrown together in North Africa during World War II, team up to pull off a heist of two-million pounds in boxes marked "plasma."Open details →
Film★ 4.01972The Black DecameronFive unrelated tales: (1) "The Ravishing Queen" / "La Reina Bella", in which the queen choses a king by devious endurance tests of the pretendants; (2) "The Punished Lovers", in which a fake blind husband is 'cured' after having the culprits banished from the tribe; (3) "The Old Prostitute" who manages to take revenge from all the village dignitaries who wrongfully condemned her brother; (4) "The Endless Search" that does not end until a hunter finds his perfect end-game; (5) "The Crazy Woman" whose illness was not exactly of the mind, but of an (almost) insatiable lust.Open details →
Film★ 6.01971In Love, Every Pleasure Has Its PainA poor laborer, Zilio, wants to marry Betìa, the daughter of a rich peasant woman. After a number of refusals Zilio is desperate, but his friend Nale plots a sham marriage between the two, convinced he can take advantage of it.Open details →
Film★ 6.61971A Bay of BloodAn elderly heiress is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out murder spree as relatives and friends attempt to reduce the inheritance playing field, complicated by some teenagers who decide to camp out in a dilapidated building on the estate.Open details →
Film★ 7.01971The Big Black SowEnrico struggles with his dysfunctional family and cheating wife, and eventually makes plans to kill them all.Open details →
Film★ 4.41970The Snake GodA beautiful Italian woman is told by her black friend about the Carribean love god Jambaya who appears in the form of the snake. By the end of the movie, Cassini has decided to give herself to Jambaya while Cunningham departs with her white friend's ex-lover, establishing a neat symmetry between their respective fantasies of exoticism.Open details →
Film★ 4.71969Check to the QueenSilvia is young, beautiful and rich. When her husband goes on a business trip, she starts working as a secretary for Margaret, a famous film star. Margaret appears to have no problems giving her what she wants and turns her into a sex slave- little by little, she subjects herself to increasingly serious humiliations in a masochistic relationship.Open details →
Film★ 8.01969The Two KennedysLife, career and death of the two protagonists of American life sixties, John and Robert Kennedy, from the days of their ascent to the White House, the first as president, the second as a minister of justice, to the death.Open details →
Film★ 5.11969Simón BolívarSimon Bolivar is the true-life story of the leader of the 1817 Venezuelan revolution.Open details →
Film★ 6.61969The DegeneratesA series of bawdy and satirical episodes written during the reign of the emperor Nero and set in imperial Rome. Like the more famous version made by Federico Fellini, an adaptation of Petronius' Satyricon.Open details →
Film★ 6.01967The RoverA former counterrevolutionary pirate befriends a mentally ill young woman and this in turn leads to tragedy when she falls in love with a French naval officer.Open details →
Film★ 6.81967Oedipus RexIn pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Oedipus, and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Oedipus that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents - only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road…Open details →
Film★ 6.01966The Big Hit of SurcoufThe continuation of the adventures of Captain Robert Surcouf and his crew.Open details →
Film★ 6.51966The WitchA historian goes to a castle library to translate some ancient erotic literature. While there he discovers what he believes to be supernatural forces at work.Open details →
Film★ 6.31966El GrecoGreek painter Domenikos Theotokopoulos (Mel Ferrer) woos a beauty (Rosanna Schiaffino) and faces the Inquisition in 16th-century Spain.Open details →
Film★ 7.21966The Hawks and the SparrowsA man and his son take an allegorical stroll through life with a talking bird that spouts social and political philosophy.Open details →
Film★ 8.01966A Woman in White RevoltsPreparing her gynecology thesis, Claude Sauvage, at the urging of a village doctor, Vincent Ferrière, agrees to replace him for a few days. During this time, she took it upon herself to abort the schoolteacher, who was afraid of giving birth to a handicapped child. But an anonymous letter denounces her, and she goes on trial.Open details →
Film★ 6.11966The Sea PirateA young naval officer becomes a corsair to make enough money to marry a pretty girl, and fights injustice and snobbery to reach home safely.Open details →
Film★ 5.81965The MandrakeA young man hatches a plan to sleep with another man's infertile wife. Based on the play by Machiavelli.Open details →
Film★ 6.81965Scouting in PalestineIn 1963, accompanied by a newsreel photographer and a Catholic priest, Piero Paolo Pasolini traveled to Palestine to investigate the possibility of filming his biblical epic The Gospel According to Matthew in its approximate historical locations. Edited by The Gospel‘s producer for potential funders and distributors, Seeking Locations in Palestine features semi-improvised commentary from Pasolini as its only soundtrack. As we travel from village to village, we listen to Pasolini’s idiosyncratic musings on the teachings of Christ and witness his increasing disappointment with the people and landscapes he sees before him. Israel, he laments, is much too modern. The Palestinians, much too wretched; it would be impossible to believe the teachings of Jesus had reached these faces. The Gospel According to Matthew was ultimately filmed in Southern Italy. Mel Gibson would use some of the same locations forty years later for The Passion of the Christ.Open details →
Film★ 8.21965Love MeetingsPier Paolo Pasolini sets out to interview Italians about sex, apparently their least favorite thing to talk about in public: he asks children if they know where babies come from; asks old and young women if they support gender equality; asks both sexes if a woman's virginity still matters, what do they think of homosexuality, if divorce should be legal, or if they support the recent abolition of brothels. He interviews blue-collar workers, intellectuals, college students, rural farmers, the bourgeoisie, and every other kind of people, painting a vivid portrait of a rapidly-industrializing Italy, hanging between modernity and tradition — toward both of which Pasolini shows equal distrust.Open details →
Film★ 7.41965The Gospel According to St. MatthewAlong a rocky, barren coastline, Jesus begins teaching, primarily using parables. He attracts disciples; he's stern, brusque, and demanding. His parables often take on the powers that be, so he and his teachings come to the attention of the Pharisees, the chief priests, and elders. They conspire to have him arrested, beaten, tried, and crucified, just as he prophesied to his followers.Open details →
Film★ 7.61963CorruptionStefano is a shy and sensitive teenager who has just completed his studies in Switzerland and is considering becoming a monk. But his father, a rich Milanese publisher, who had the ambition to see his son succeed him, refuses and takes him on a cruise with a young woman to take this idea out of his mind...Open details →
Film★ 7.21963Ro.Go.Pa.G.Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life. "Illibatezza" (Rossellini): The hostess Anna Maria, to dissuade an aggressive suitor who prefers maternal tendencies, assumes an unscrupulous attitude, obeying the suggestions of her distant boyfriend. "The New World" (Godard): The deflagration of an atomic bomb causes strange effects on the inhabitants of a city. "La ricotta" (Pasolini): During the filming of a film about a religious subject, the extra Stracci dies hanging on the cross due to an indigestion of ricotta. "Il pollo spante" (Gregoretti): While an expert illustrates to a board of merchants the most modern techniques to increase sales through the discovery of the secret self of the average consumer, the human story of a bourgeois who, following these suggestions, focuses on the purchase of a plot of land in the countryside.Open details →
Film★ 6.01963La bella di LodiStory of Roberta, a beautiful young woman from a wealthy industrialist family and her relationship with Franco, a rough car mechanic and stranger whom she meets on the beach of Forte dei Marmi.Open details →
Film★ 10.01962Notti calde d'OrienteNotti Calde d'Oriente (released in English-speaking countries "Orient by Night"), the 1962 Roberto Bianchi Montero Italian mondo strip tease sexploitation documentary featuring Takeucmi Keigo and His Imperial Japanese Dancers, Bommie the International Dancer of New Orleans, Chiquita and her Jamaican Strip-Tease, The Two Jolly Sisters, and Dodo D'Amburgo the Queen of the Strip-Tease. Note that this was one of the approximately 100 "sexy nocturne" mondo style documentaries that were produced between 1959 and 1970, mainly in Italy. They are documentaries that include segments of strippers, which allowed them to include nudity that had formerly only been seen in nudist movies. The strippers are shown performing their acts, and there was an attempt to film them artistically.Open details →
Film★ 7.91962Mamma RomaAfter years spent working as a prostitute in her Italian village, middle-aged Mamma Roma has saved enough money to buy herself a fruit stand so that she can have a respectable middle-class life and reestablish contact with the 16-year-old son she abandoned when he was an infant. But her former pimp threatens to expose her sordid past, and her troubled son seems destined to fall into a life of crime and violence.Open details →