Adriana Innocenti

Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi was born in 1813 and lived until 1901, his life spanning nearly a century of political turmoil and considerable personal turmoil. This 1982 biographical television miniseries, as seen on PBS's Great Performances, dramatizes the life of this classic Italian composer known for operas including La Traviata, Rigoletto, and Aida and his Requiem.

The Devil's Game

A story about the devil's influence on five people's lives in 20th-century Venice.

The Venus of Ille

A wealthy landowner uncovers a bronze statue of Venus on his property. He asks an antique expert to examine the statue and confirm its wealth. Upon arrival, the expert is striken with love by the landowner’s daughter-in-law who bears an uncanny resemblance to the statue.

The Cat

Amedeo and Ofelia, middle aged brother and sister, own jointly an old decadent, but still attractive, condominium. They want to sell it, but before they have to evict all the tenants. Of course, these don't want to leave at all. The cat (Il Gatto), mascot and beloved by all, dies and this gives the two an excuse to enter the tenants' life. Amedeo starts to court the young Wanda and Ofelia seduces the priest Don Pezzolla. In the meantime police is looking for the cat killer...

Lobster for Breakfast

Marco is married to Carla, a rich businesswoman. She's off to Geneva for two days; he has a tryst with Monique, a Swedish air hostess. Carla's flight is canceled, so she heads home about to catch Mario en flagrant. Mario's salvation is Enrico, an old school mate and hapless salesman who shows up to beg Mario to buy toilets so he won't lose his job. Mario signs an order in exchange for Enrico's posing as Monique's husband. Carla invites them to stay overnight and join a business dinner party catered by Enrico's wife, Matilde. Enrico spends the evening trying to avoid her, Mario spends it chasing the willing Monique, and Carla wants to close a deal. Can this farce end happily?

The Dinner

An evening at an Italian restaurant hosted by tolerant and relaxed Flora, various middle-class parties enter – large and small, young and old, regulars and tourists, married and single – to dine, converse, argue, celebrate, make confessions; to eavesdrop, to interrupt, to sing, listen to music, and enjoy life.

Voyage of Terror: The Achille Lauro Affair

The story of the hijacking of the Italian luxury liner Achille Lauro by four Palestinians.

The True Life of Antonio H.

This film depicts a series of landmark events in the life of hapless thespian Antonio Hutter (Alessandro Haber), the unfortunate fictional alter-ego of legendary actor Alessandro Haber. This surreal faux-biography begins with Hutter's birth in Bologna, Italy, and his early life in the Middle East and follows him through the highs and lows of his acting career, using a combination of interviews with real-life colleagues, archival footage and improvised scenes along the way.

Dear Michele

Michael is the younger son of a middle-class family, a strong-willed and free-thinking fellow, who is off in some distant country fighting for a revolutionary cause. Everyone in the family writes to him, describing the events of their lives, as they drift into a kind of conventionality which would perhaps have horrified them earlier. Only Michael’s girlfriend Mara, the mother of his child, retains her independence, even though it is through the help of Michael’s increasingly conventional friends and family that she survives.

L'assassino si chiama Pompeo

Verdi

This 1982 biographical television miniseries, as seen on PBS's Great Performances, dramatizes the life of this classic Italian composer known for operas including La Traviata, Rigoletto, and Aida and his Requiem.

Acapulco, Last Beach... on the Left

Gigi and Andrea are two thirty-something slackers who still live off their parents and dream of spending an adventurous holiday on the beaches of Acapulco. Given their meager finances, however, they have to settle for Cesenatico and the shabby guesthouse run by Gigi’s aunt. There, the two embark on countless attempts to pick up women, only to fail miserably every time.

Petomaniac

The real story of a French man who was able to control his own farts.

Eye of the Cat

Biting, sadistic satire punctuates this dark comedy about a feckless musician named Marcello Ferrari (Nino Manfredi) whose wife Giulia (Mariangela Melato) and kids are stolen away by the domineering, fascist madman Cesare (Eli Wallach).

One Can Say It Without Getting Angry

Pauline intends to end her days and meticulously prepares her suicide, but she meets Peppo, an Italian immigrant, who will change her mind.