Peppino, a retired hitman for the Camorra, has now fully passed on his job and know-how to his single son, Nino. But when Nino is brutally assassinated, the old man is back in business to take revenge. Aside his everlasting love Rita and his longtime henchman Totò, Peppino will go to any lengths, even if it means bringing the Camorra down.
Pina was born in Portugal but now lives in poor circumstances in Naples. Pina has two daughters, Rosa, who has been wearing a wedding dress since she was left stranded at the altar several years ago, and Caterina, who murdered a man who wronged her as he left the church following his wedding. Caterina winds up in prison alongside Maddalena, a prostitute who witnessed the murder and was inspired to kill a man in her own life who had hurt her. The incidents from these women's lives are interspersed with another story, set in 1929 and filmed in black-and-white, about a man who shoots his wife in a movie theater and must run to avoid the police.
Mario and Veronica, a married couple with no children, are both very committed to their careers, which are booming. He's a sales representative for a fertilizer company, while she inherited a boutique from her mother that she wants to renovate and transform. However, things take an unexpected turn when she discovers she's pregnant. What should be good news backfires, as he, almost at the same time, receives test results declaring him sterile.
Franco Campanella, a former postal worker earning under €1,000 monthly, is devoted to his family but addicted to gambling. On his daughter Luisa’s wedding eve, he promises to save for expenses but, after being denied a loan, gambles away tens of thousands, ending up in debt to loan sharks and Camorra members.
Valerio Mastandrea is Franz, a night bus driver on the airport route who owes a lot of money from poker debts. He's stumbled upon by the variously named Leila, a thief who has accidentally become wrapped up in a secretive blackmail deal involving the President. As the film unfolds, a secret war between factions of the Security Services, a series of confusions among the various criminal fraternities whose activites have been touched upon by the deal, and Leila's past all complicate the situation.
Piero Cicala is an adult singer who leads a modest life in the shadow of the only moment of glory lived in the eighties, thanks to a song that earned him a million records sold. Just when it seems that fame is definitively confined to the past, Piero receives the proposal to conduct a broadcast in Rome. Accepted the offer, he goes to the capital, where he will meet the famous Tatia Cortès, an irrepressible showgirl...
Three episodes. In the first, Aurora lives in a luxurious apartment. Among some workers called to her house, she recognizes an old lover, who returns to courting her, but then empties her house. In the second, a boy released from reform school discovers that his mother is actually his father: a transvestite. In the third, a newsagent, suspecting her husband, who constantly pretends to be ill, is cheating on her, places a video camera in her room. She records his sexual encounters on a videotape that she sells at newsstands. In his directorial debut, Corsicato demonstrates a sharp and poetic talent (he was Almodovar's assistant) in creating three portraits of women that are also portraits of his city, Naples.
Alfredo and Susanna are two well-off fifty-year-olds who lead a stimulating cultural life. He is an architect and she is a psychologist; they live in Rome but spend their weekends at their country home in Umbria, where they love to spend their days walking in the forests or relaxing poolside with a good book. One day, as she goes into town, Susanna sees a girl prostituting herself in the bushes on the side of the road and decides to save her from her unhappy existence, despite the enormous differences that separate their ways of life.
Luna is an endearingly prudish teacher in Milan, who lives with her grumpy father. Often teased by students and co-workers alike, her only ally is the janitor, Angelo, who harbors a secret crush on Luna. When a carnival comes to town, Luna meets a man who possesses a magic lamp, which he uses to free her "shadow self." This doppelganger is Luna's polar opposite, whose presence poses both a problem and an opportunity for Luna.
Bella is the host of a popular television program about plastic surgery. Her husband René is a surgeon who performs operations on guests during the same show. Then Bella is fired, due to a drop in the ratings. She storms out of the TV studio and has a terrible car accident on the way home, leaving her disfigured. Yet what might well seem to be the coup de grace for Bella’s career turns out to be the perfect occasion to relaunch her own image...
A group of actors meet with little money in a unofficial theatre in Naples' Spanish Boroughs. Director's plan is to travel to Sarajevo, still under siege, to stage a classic Eschilus' play about civil war in Tebe. While they rehearse in the theatre cast members come and go and another kind of war goes on every day in nearby streets of old Naples.
Irene, nicknamed 'Miele', has devote herself to people looking for help, and tries to alleviate their suffering even when they make extreme decisions. One day she has to cope with Grimaldi and his invisible malaise.
Working together with his friend Leo as a waiter in a dining car, Simone discovers that Silvia, a girl with whom he had a casual relationship, is pregnant and wants to keep the baby.
The true natures of love, commitment, and reality are called into question in this offbeat drama. One night in bed, Tomas, a magician, begins telling a story to his wife Desirè about Emma and Sal, a married couple whose love life has gone stale. In order to fire up their relationship, Emma and Sal begin playing an increasingly elaborate series of role-playing games, in which they assume different personas -- Sal saves Emma as she is tied to railroad tracks, or Emma must seduce another man to pull her husband out of debt. But the question soon arises -- are Emma and Sal real? And who really holds the power in their lives? Chimera also features Franco Nero as one of the participants in Emma and Sal's sexual fantasies.
The impossible love between one prostitute, managing a bunch of handicapped prostitutes, and the homosexual Adamo. In the horrible suburb of Napoli we can follow among fantasy, mythology and reality the absurd life of the protagonists.
The housing shortage means that two spouses have to continue living under the same roof despite the ongoing legal separation. Incidents and misunderstandings to no end, but the couple's son will take care of fixing everything.
Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
The documentary aims to tell the story of a director who managed to capture the attention of the whole world and, due to his political and aesthetic coherence, was able to work much less than he deserved. It's the story of a film professor who earned the gratitude and affection of all his students. The tale of a cinephile who successfully combined social and civic commitment with a spectacular talent worthy of Hollywood.
An italian short comedy
In 19th-century Italy, Giacomo Leopardi channels his debilitating illness and isolation into poetry.
In Puglia, a cooperative wants to farm the land confiscated from a Mafioso, as it is legally entitled to do. But things are moving slowly. So the members of the cooperative turn to Filippo, who belongs to an anti-mafia organisation with its headquarters in the north. Filippo arrives in Puglia and realises that everyone, starting with the carabinieri, is taking huge liberties with the law.
Alba has Down's Syndrome and was left in the hospital when she was born. Thirty families rejected her before the court decided to entrust her to Luca: a Catholic — and gay — single man.
Three stories to narrate the relationship between mount Vesuvius and the humanity living at its feet. Maria and her flower garden, Matteo, an artist who paints using the volcano's ashes, and Yole, a neo-melodic singer whose devotion to the Virgin Mary is almost idolatric.
In the space of twenty-four hours the life of Anita, single and brilliant manager in career, is blown away by a hurricane of trouble.
Heartbroken that their children no longer want to spend time with them, two parents fake an inheritance to bring the family together for Christmas.
Everyday people, everyday stories. Normal, therefore special. They crave for a tomorrow what they haven't got today: the man or the woman of their dreams, a child all of their own, the hope of making it... The only thing they all have in common is the place where they live.
Sonia, a girl from St. Petersburg, decides to seek a better life in Western Europe. She first gets a job at a car dealer in Germany. But she is suddenly kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. She will be dragged from country to country and resistance will only bring her misery and humiliation.
It’s Ferragosto, Italy’s mid-August holiday, in a practically deserted hospital in Naples. Two nurses, Angelo and Salvatore, are on shift when a desperately ill patient is wheeled in. With his seasoned eye, Angelo knows at once that Mr. Caputo won’t last the night. Salvatore happens to loathe Angelo and decides to bet on the opposite outcome. The winner of the bet will nab the top holiday slot: Christmas vacation. Angelo takes up the challenge. From that moment on, Salvatore will spend the night trying to keep Mr. Caputo alive, while Angelo will play dirty to make sure he wins the bet. That night, it’s anything goes at their hospital, from the nurses’ cheap shots to doctors on cocaine and suspicious characters lurking in the ward.
The artist Rä di Martino celebrates MAS, Rome's historic "people's warehouses," with a documentary that blurs the lines between reality and fiction.
A series of skits involving customers and store personnel from several departments of the big department store.
The apparently quiet lives of four milanese bourgeois couples become intertwined
Five Neapolitan directors depict life in the city under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius for this anthology film of comedy, drama, surrealism, and political commentary.
Married for most of her adult life, Nina plunges into depression after being suddenly deserted by her husband. Eventually, she'll find a way out by having multiple affairs with strangers.
Claudia and Flavio were once passionately in love, but all of that is over. Now, in their fifties, they must venture anew into the world of love and dating once more but for Claudia confronting the end and accepting a new beginning isn’t so easy. Claudia is unwilling to let go and forget the life she’s built with Flavio, while Flavio, eager to move on, soon finds himself in a relationship with a much younger woman. Claudia soon reconnects with Nina, a student from her days as a professor.
Traveling from New York to Italia, pretty Mary rushes into moody macho lawyer Tito. The girl immediately falls for the guy with the gruffy manners and in an very impertinent way, she leans on him as she gets in trouble: Not only that she gets tied up in her suite by some Gangsters, but also, her new husband is found dead.
The tragic coming-of-age story of a boy who takes his experiences to the point of seeking death, only to be reborn. His favourite poet chose death, but he finds the strength to survive and tell about his “obscene life”.
Mirea is about to be 18 years old, and her family is prepearing a big party for her. Teresa, Mirea's mother, wants to gain notoriety, so begins to spend recklessy for the celebration. When the day finally comes, an unexpected death puts it at risk.
Inspired by the work of Italian underground comic book prodigy Andrea Pazienza, "Paz!" is a 24-hour slice of life of a group of university students sharing a flat in 1970s Bologna, grappling with drugs, classes, girls and half-hearted political activism.
Matteo is a young successful businessman, audacious, charming and energetic. Ettore instead, is a calm, righteous, second grade teacher always living in the shadows, still in the small town from where both come from. They’re brothers but with two very different personalities. A dramatic event will force them to live together in Rome for a few months, bringing up the opportunity to face their differences with sympathy and tenderness, in a climax of fear and euphoria.
Dive into the Eternal City – see Rome like you’ve never seen it before. Storefront robberies, bizarre murders, career dreamers, and cameos from Italy's foremost directors and actors feature in this star-studded omnibus tale about life and love.
Andrea Serrano is a young aspiring writer who, to make ends meet, is forced to wash corpses in a mortuary, while struggling to finish his first novel, a story about the Camorra. Having become discouraged by his struggling career, he is waiting for the chance of a lifetime. And finally, it arrives - a major film producer decides to adapt his novel and make it into a movie.
A woman in her flooded kitchen thinks of Ophelia and death by drowning. A nun wonders about her vocation. A girl, dumb by choice, walks around in Naples. A ballerina in a wheelchair. Three youths around a bonfire in a little island. A man secluded in a tower waiting for the end of the world. And many other stories.
This documentary celebrates the 100th anniversary of the cinema birth. It is an historic running through the technical and artistic evolution of the 7th art. We move from mute to sound, from B&W to color, trough all the genders (musical, Lyric, politic...). Beside it we have a kind of resume of the historic contest in which cinema lived till now, events and movements (neo-realism, classical etc.). All the aspects are taken in consideration: fashion, star system till the end, the sad end, of cinema in the theaters.
After being abandoned on New Year's Eve and discovering that their husbands have committed a robbery, three very different women choose to go to Argentina in search of their spouses.
Viterbo, 1250. Rosa is a young girl who, after a night vision, begins to preach the words of St. Francis in the streets. One day she is sent into exile. Short in a medieval setting, between ancient villages and naturalistic locations, focused on power conflicts: political, religious and gender.
In early 20th-century Naples, a theatrical parody lands beloved thespian and playwright Eduardo Scarpetta in court, facing a malicious lawsuit that could compromise his freedom of expression and the economic security of his extended family—including his son's, young Eduardo De Filippo.
Mario Martone films the eponymous stage show by Enzo Moscato.
Giada and Carlo are a couple with great complicity and intimacy, while each of them pursues their own career with determination. The young and ambitious Peter fascinates Carlo, who introduces him to the family. However, when Giada sees Peter, she has an unexpected reaction and tries in every way to remove him from their home: he could bring out some unspeakable secret from her past. And yet, the truth always finds a way to come out.
Stella, a former film star now in decline, proposes a surrogate pregnancy with Monica to her son Giovanni and his husband, Jonathan. Stella hides behind this proposal the plan to make a comeback.
A retired professor in his seventies enjoys a quiet, carefree life – until his daughter, amid a marital crisis, arrives with her two unruly children. As his peaceful routine unravels, he’s drawn into the chaos of family and unexpected emotions. Through this upheaval, he rediscovers the beauty and pain of love, and the deep human need to connect—despite the cost.
One of the key factors in Italian unification was the overthrow in 1860 of Francesco, the King of Naples and the two Sicilies, who went into elegant but impoverished exile in Rome with his Queen, Maria Sofia. This seriocomic drama follows the deposed royals as they adapt to their new lives. The former king has recognized the political finality of his deposition, but his queen has taken to traveling in men's clothing all over Italy trying to foment an uprising to restore them to the throne. She is also frantic to have a baby, an heir, but the king has become celibate as a kind of homage to his beloved mother; he spends all his time lobbying the Vatican to get her declared a saint.
