I Love Italian Everything

Rather than living the good life he’d imagined, newly retired Gianni spends his days running errands for those around him. Bemoaning his fate, he decides to take a mistress — a task that proves easier said than done in this wistful comedy.

This action-packed crime thriller profiles the bloody career of Renato Vallanzasca, a daring and handsome outlaw who gained fame — and celebrity-style adoration by many — during the 1970s with a brazen string of robberies, kidnappings and murders.

Successful in her stable job and comfortable relationship with her boyfriend, Alessio (Giuseppe Battiston), Anna (Alba Rohrwacher) lives a peaceful and balanced life — until an office flirtation with a married man (Pierfrancesco Favino) turns into a wildly passionate affair. As she begins to want more from her lover than weekly trysts, Anna’s clingy attitude threatens to shake everything up in this thoughtful drama from filmmaker Silvio Soldini.

This visual poem brings to life Pythagoras’s theory that the soul moves from human to animal to vegetable to mineral in its evolutionary journey. Wordlessly, the film follows an elderly Italian goat herder as he makes the remarkable transition. Director Michelangelo Frammartino captures the essence of everyday life in the Italian countryside as the man transforms into a baby goat, a giant tree and a lump of coal.

In the wrong place at the wrong time, Sonia takes a bullet to the head during an art robbery. She survives, but later finds herself haunted by visions. Her mysterious past, meanwhile, comes to light under the watchful eye of a suspicious policeman.

Family dissension, unbidden desire and other tensions bubble to the surface during a patriarch’s birthday party. When the seemingly picture-perfect Recchi clan gathers to celebrate the man, the veneer of civility quickly falls away.

The acclaimed director of Cinema Paradiso follows three generations of a family facing tumultuous personal and political events in this intimate comedy based on his own experiences growing up in a Sicilian village.

Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) falls for young Benito Mussolini (Filippo Timi) in Milan and sells everything she has to help the future dictator fund his newspaper, Popolo d’Italia. But when World War I separates the newly wedded couple, Mussolini marries another woman. Ida demands to retain her rights as Mussolini’s wife and the mother of his son, but the Fascists have other plans for the dictator’s dark secret in this gripping biopic.

The intertwining tales of a delivery boy, a tailor, a businessman and two cocky teenagers form the fabric of this gritty and lyrical examination of the influential Neapolitan mob known as the Camorra.

 Mid-August Lunch 2008 NR 75 minutesAs the Italian holiday of Pranzo di Ferragosto approaches, cash-strapped Gianni (Gianni Di Gregorio) gets help from his landlord, his friend and his doctor, who offer financial relief in exchange for Gianni looking after their elderly relatives over the holiday. Four mismatched Italian mamas at the same table make for an awkward, hilarious and touching mid-August lunch in this film festival favorite from Di Gregorio, who also writes and directs.

After years of putting it off, Elsa (Margherita Buy) finally returns to school to pursue her art history degree. But her newfound academic bliss crumbles when her husband, Michele (Antonio Albanese), loses his job and the duo is forced to sell their gorgeous flat. The ensuing financial strain soon takes a surprising toll on their marriage in director Silvio Soldini’s intimate domestic drama, shot in beautiful Genoa.

After helping his brother (Alessandro Gassman) save two women from drowning, film exec Pietro (Nanni Moretti) returns home only to find that his wife has suddenly died, plunging him into a quiet chaos of grief as he assumes sole parenting duties of his 10-year-old daughter, Claudia (Blu Yoshimi). Valeria Golino co-stars as Pietro’s beautiful sister-in-law, Marta, in this tender and thoughtfully understated portrait of mourning and survival.

Twelve-year-old Caterina faces new vistas when her father is transferred to Rome. She has new classmates to win over in an environment that’s a far cry from the bucolic existence of her small country hometown. Amidst the tumult, Caterina could easily lose her sense of self if not for an extraordinary Australian boy who lives in the apartment building across the way.

Italian actor-director Roberto Benigni stars as a romantic poet who vows to follow his love (Benigni’s real-life wife, Nicoletta Braschi) to the ends of the earth — even if that means going to Iraq at the dawn of the American invasion. Borrowing a bit from the plot of Benigni’s Oscar-winning film Life Is Beautiful, this whimsical comedy presents a world in which all camps are absurd. French actor Jean Reno co-stars.

Painter and illustrator Ernesto (Sergio Castellitto) — a strident atheist — finds his patience tried and his philosophy tested when his opportunistic family attempts to coerce him into false testimony to ensure his murdered mother’s sainthood. Complicating matters is the fact that his son (Alberto Mondini) has begun to adopt spiritual beliefs. Director Marco Bellocchio delivers an incisive look at religious desolation in this provocative film.

The pleasant life of middle-aged Agata (Licia Maglietta) — owner of the most popular bookstore in town — is turned topsy-turvy when she begins an uncertain affair with a man 13 years her junior (Claudio Santamaria). Meanwhile, life is equally turbulent for her brother, Gustavo (Emilio Solfrizzi), who discovers he was adopted and sets off to find his biological brother (Giuseppe Battiston) — a married traveling salesman with a roving eye.

When Stefania breaks up with her boyfriend, Andrea, little does she realize what the summer has in store for her. She and her 14-year-old niece, Meggy, wind up on vacation at a beautiful Greek resort, where her niece sets out to lose her virginity; in an ironic twist, the cute guy Meggy has her eye on turns out to be none other than Stefania’s ex, Andrea! This light-hearted comedy is a valuable lesson in what it means to be a woman at any age.

Giovanni, a successful psychoanalyst, enjoys a peaceful, happy life with his loving wife and their two bright teenagers. But when one son drowns in a diving accident, the family’s tight emotional bond is put to the test.

A wife, a child, a house … it all seems like too much for a guy who’s afraid to grow up! But Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) is not alone. All of his buddies are suffering their own growing pains, and none of them seem ready to settle down without a fight. As the romantic entanglements tighten, this self-centered group of guys struggles to learn the complicated, age-old lessons of life and love.

Maria (Sandra Ceccarelli) is a single mother who’s struggling to save both her shop and custody of her little girl. When the gentle Antonio (Luigi Lo Cascio) enters Maria’s life and is gradually drawn into the suffering, tragedy and mysteries of her world, the inner journey of their love also becomes the discovery of compassion and fantasy before the harsh realities of a perplexing world. A multiple award winner at the Venice Film Festival.

While recovering from the shock of her husband’s death, an Italian woman discovers that her husband had had a secret lover for the last 7 years. But she’s even more surprised to discover that he and his lover were part of an extended “family” of gays, transgenders and other social outcasts a family she finds herself drifting toward as she overcomes the emotions of her husband’s passing.

A cosseted, unhappy housewife (Licia Maglietta) who’s taken for granted by her philandering, self-centered husband (Antonio Catania) finds “bella fortuna” when she hitchhikes to Venice and starts to construct a brand-new life for herself.

When 12-year-old Renato catches a glimpse of beautiful new bride Malèna, his heart skips a beat. But when jealous town busybodies begin spreading vile rumors about her, Renato must incorporate those falsehoods with what he knows to be true.

A Jewish Italian waiter named Guido is sent to a Nazi concentration camp, along with his wife and their young son. Refusing to give up hope, Guido tries to protect his son’s innocence by pretending that their imprisonment is an elaborate game.

Giuseppe Tornatore’s Oscar-winning film follows Salvatore, a Sicilian boy who is mesmerized by the movies shown at the local theater. He befriends projectionist Alfredo, who mentors him and ultimately tells him to leave home to pursue his dreams. Now a famous film director, Salvatore returns home for the first time 30 years later for Alfredo’s funeral and is overcome with warm memories of his childhood even as the town has changed.