Tea with Mussolini

In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.

1999-03-25 | en

Ask the Dust

Mexican beauty Camilla hopes to rise above her station by marrying a wealthy American. That is complicated by meeting Arturo Bandini, a first-generation Italian hoping to land a writing career and a blue-eyed blonde on his arm.

2006-02-02 | en

Golden Door

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

2006-09-22 | it

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor's beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.

2002-05-16 | zh

Vendetta II: The New Mafia

1993-11-28 | en

The Conformist

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

1970-07-01 | it

The Unknown Woman

Irena, a Ukrainian woman, comes to Italy looking for a job as a maid. She does everything she can to become a beloved nanny for an adorable little girl, Thea. However, that is just the very beginning of her unknown journey.

2006-10-09 | it

Altweibersommer

Astrid, Elli and Isabella go camping together as they used to. However, not only because Elli has breast cancer, nothing is like it used to be. Only when Astrid steals the savings of a man who has died in an accident the three leave old habits to renew their friendship in Italy.

2025-04-04 | de

Happiness Costs Nothing

A man in his forties has had enough. He leaves his loveless family, uninspiring job and fake friends and tries to find something more. He meets a young woman he falls for, but she puts him on the test.

2003-01-31 | it

October

Ira wanders around the streets of Moscow. She's pregnant with the child of Adrissa, an african student.

1993-05-13 | ru

Il Divo

Italy, early '90s. Calm, clever and inscrutable, politician Giulio Andreotti has been synonymous with power for decades. He has survived everything: electoral battles, terrorist massacres, loss of friends, slanderous accusations; but now certain repentant mobsters implicate him in the crimes of Cosa Nostra.

2008-05-28 | it

Il maestro di violino

The violin teacher at the Perugia Conservatory in Italy is loved by his female pupils and the rich ladies in town. Later we learn that he was a great concert soloist and had to give up his career because of his drunkard wife.

1976-07-16 | it

On Distant Shores

The film portrays the life of the legendary Azerbaijani guerrilla of the Second World War Mehdi Huseynzadeh, who fought the Nazi forces in the present-day Italy and Slovenia, hence the film's name On distant shores referring to the Adriatic Sea.

1958-08-18 | az

Luthière

Elara, a young violinist, is madly in love with Lucio, a Sicilian student. Their love blossoms, but suddenly Lucio must return to Italy to care for his sick niece. Elara struggles with loneliness and sadness, until she finds new inspiration in a dream.

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The Soloist

A Los Angeles journalist befriends a homeless Juilliard-trained musician, while looking for a new article for the paper.

2009-04-24 | en

Together

When a violin prodigy Xiaochun and his father head to Beijing seeking fame and fortune, they soon discover a fierce world of cutthroat ambition. But when Xiaochun is "adopted" by a famous music tutor, success finally seems within reach - until a shocking discovery begins to unravel his entire world, and the boy must make the most difficult choice of his life. Can he achieve the fame his father had always hoped for without losing the extraordinary passion that sets him apart?

2002-09-10 | zh

A Season of Giants

At the turn of the sixteenth century, Michelangelo (Mark Frankel), Raphael (Andrea Prodan), and Leonardo Da Vinci (John Glover) create their masterpieces, while dealing with religious persecution, political turmoil, and the discovery of America.

1990-11-04 | en

The Adventures of Pinocchio

One of puppet-maker Geppetto's creations comes magically to life. This puppet, Pinocchio, has one major desire and that is to become a real boy someday. In order to accomplish this goal he has to learn to act responsibly. This film shows you the adventures on which he learns valuable lessons.

1996-07-26 | en

Phyllis

Phyllis is a moving and atmospheric portrait of a ‘psychic’ vampire, a woman obsessed with synthetic Nollywood dramas, that lives alone in Lagos, Nigeria. The central idea of this short experimental film is the practise and significance of wig-wearing in Nollywood film; a practise the director has invested with deeper psychological as well as science-fiction layers. Underpinning this central idea however is a critique of the unforgiving treatment of single women in Nollywood and Nigeria. The film is an example of what the director, Zina Saro-Wiwa, has termed “alt-Nollywood”, a genre that plays with and reworks certain narrative, stylistic and visual conventions of Nollywood. Phyllis explores the gothic possibilities of the Nollywood aesthetic creating a new kind of low-budget atmospheric film that is very much of Nollywood and yet subverts the genre. Using Nollywood to subvert Nollywood.

2011-04-07 | en

A Spiral of Mist

The lovely Maria Teresa is unhappily married with the impotent lawyer Marcello. Maria Teresa's marriage is contrasted by the passionate Valeria, who is killed during a chase. Is Valeria's husband the murderer? Maria Teresa helps him..

1977-09-08 | it