The history of Italian cinema began with a few seconds footage of Pope Leo XIII blessing the camera. Historical dramas were most popular in these early years before sound. During and after WWI, funds were short and nothing much of interest was made until the 1920s. With the rise of fascism the film industry was encouraged and in 1937 Cinecitta was built on the outskirts of Rome. Literally a 'cinema city', it contained everything a film maker could need or want, including theatres, and even a cinematography school. The slogan on posters at the time read "Cinema is The Most Powerful Weapon". Newsreels and propagandistic documentaries were filmed here but by 1939, feature film productions were underway. Visconti ('Ossessione'), Rossellini (Rome, Open City') and De Sica ('Bicycle Thief') all began their careers here. Post-war, two distinct trends emerged in Italian cinema: on the one hand, the neo-realist films of Rossellini and De Sica, made chiefly on location in the streets of Rome and surrounding towns; and on the other, the American megaproductions, filmed almost entirely on sets constructed in the Cinecitta studios. In 1948, 'Quo Vadis?', 'Roman Holiday (1952), 'Three Coins in a Fountain' (1954), 'Farewell to Arms' (1957), 'Ben Hur' (1958) and 'Cleopatra' (1961), to cite only the most famous. Federico Fellini shot most of his films, at least in part at Cinecitta and to this day the studios are used for television and film productions. Mention must also be made of Pasolini, Bertolucci, Zeffirelli, Antonioni, Sergio Leone - Italy has given cinema some of its greatest individuals and auteurs. Pictured: The lost kisses from 'Cinema Paradiso'
From Giuseppe Tornatore ("Cinema Paradiso") comes this sexy and sensitive coming-of-age saga set in 1940s Sicily, where 13 year old Renalto (Giuseppe... Read more
A surgeon recalls the crucial moments of his life as his own teenage daughter lies on the operating table, hovering between life and death in this ten... Read more
Bozzetto's cult feature-length parody of Walt Disney's classic 'Fantasia' is both a send-up and an imaginative and beautiful film in its own right. "A... Read more
Film exec Pietro (Nanni Moretti) faces tragedy when his wife dies in a freak accident. Now left with a ten-year-old daughter to raise alone, he takes... Read more
Michelangelo Antonioni's first colour film is an intriguing study of alienation. Against the backdrop of a sterilized, impersonal industrial landscape... Read more
A gripping based-on-fact drama about 17-year-old Rita Atria, who back in 1991 came forward to denounce the mafia violence that had claimed the lives o... Read more
Terence Hill stars in this award-winning and popular Italian detective series as Father Matteo, a 'special' investigator whose profound knowledge of t... Read more
A box-office smash in Italy, this charming, bittersweet comedy is study of the mysterious nature of love. The ups and downs of relationships are chron... Read more
A gentle slice of Italian life comedy, in which a middle aged man has to look after four elderly women for a few days. Still living with his 93-year-o... Read more
Winner of the 1991 Best Foreign Language Academy Award. A small, eight-man battalion is ordered to secure a strategically unimportant Greek island. Th... Read more