Emilio Cigoli

At a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding (imdb)

The film follows the anguish of the four-year-old, Prico, after his mother, Nina, leaves his father, Andrea, for her lover Roberto. Prico is sent to his aunt and then to his grandmother. Nina returns when Prico is sick and vows to give up Roberto, even though he persists in seeing her. The family situation gradually improves until they take a holiday on the Italian Riviera. (imdb)

This movie centers around a group of people that are both very Italian-Catholic and the same time oversexed and jaded European bourgeosis from the late "dolce vita" era. The main protagonist is a former priest who has become bored to the point of impotence by the easy availability of beautiful women. He misses the shame of the priesthood which made sex somehow more enjoyable, and this somehow leads to his strange fascination with photographing asses. (imdb)

A story about finding freedom and love in communist Russia.

Doomed love within a corrupt political world. At 18, the beautiful and smart Kira comes to Petersburg as the Communists consolidate power. She rebuffs a cousin who rises in the Party and may remember the slight. She falls in love with Leo, the son of an aristocrat, who gets into political trouble and never gets out. Meanwhile, a Party leader, Andrei, also loves her, and she feigns love for him to get political protection for Leo and money to pay for his TB treatment... (imdb)

Sunday, august 7th. Various people from Rome, poor and rich ones, spend their Sunday at the beach in Ostia.

From the novel "Vae Victis" by Annie Vivanti. (bfi)

A young woman is murdered and robbed in broad daylight. A young man is arrested, in possession of some of the jewels of the victim. The passionate protests of his sister arouse the compassion of Za la Mort, who promises to help the girl. (Letterboxd)

After having been captured in a Crimea during a failed attempt to flee overseas, Leo returns in Petersburg for Kira.

It is a documentary film about the main historical, social and political events of the period between 1911 and 1945.