Giorgio Bassani

In the late 1930s, in Ferrara, Italy, the Finzi-Contini are one of the leading families, wealthy, aristocratic... (imdb)

Three stories of well-off youths who commit murders. In the French episode a group of high school students kill one of their colleagues for his money. In the Italian episode a university student is involved in smuggling cigarettes. In the English episode a lazy poet finds the body of a woman on the downs, and tries to sell his story to the press. (imdb)

In the midst of World War II, the story of the affair of a young woman, married to a man bound to a wheelchair, with a desertor from the Italian army, intertwines with that of the grab of power of a very fanatical local fascist leader, who gets the hold with a massacre of Pacific opposers, among them, the father of the young desertor. Oppresive fog covers both dramas, as a reminder of how values such as courage, love and truth are fading. (imdb)

Giovanni lives at Lake Garda and has an unsuccessful shipyard. He is accused of murdering his brother and flees into the mountains.

1) A jar repairer gets trapped in a vat because of his hunch. 2) A young unmarried mother is forced to beg to buy herself a fan. 3) Rosario Chiarchiaro appears before a law court for ... casting spells. 4) The discomfort of an over tight jacket gives a wedding witness the strength to persuade the reluctant parents of the bridegroom to bless his union. (imdb)

The famous and beautiful park in downtown Rome is the ideal place for romance, greatly attended by all sorts of couples in search of a little privacy... meeting point of young maids and soldiers; the perfect frame for a compromising picture with blackmailing purposes; theater of jealousy scenes when secret love affairs come to light; sentimental "ambiance" for a blind date... and the prostitutes' favorite "walking" area! (imdb)

Five episodes,each illustrating an aspect of post-war Italian life: 1. Mara 2. Il pupo 3. Scena all'aperto 4. Casa d'altri 5. Don Corradino (bfi)

Gemma, daughter of a lodger, is in love with her half-brother, but since she cannot marry him she ends up marrying a teacher. She doesn't love him and betrays him but is blackmailed by a Romanian countess who forces her to become a prostitute. She's desperate but in the end she asks her husband for help. She has learned to love him in the meantime. (imdb)

When peasant girl Nives is deserted by smuggler Gino Lodi, she betrays him to the police. Police officer Enzo Cinti, who loves Nives, traces her to the Po River cane-fields, where she is working as a cutter to support herself and an infant son, and warns her that Gino has escaped from prison and is seeking revenge. She rejects his offer to protect her. Gino finds Nives, mourning the drowning death of their son.

A Jewish family and a homosexual doctor suffer persecution in Fascist Italy. Based on a novel by Giorgio Bassani.