Paolo Taviani

After the bankruptcy of their father's stonemasonry firm, brothers Nicola and Andrea emigrate to America to restore their fortunes... (imdb)

Plot Summary for Notte di San Lorenzo, La (1982) The Night of San Lorenzo, the night of the shooting stars, is the night when dreams come true in Italian folklore. In 1944, a group of Italians flee their town after hearing rumours that the Nazis plan to blow it up and that the Americans are about to arrive to liberate them. (imdb)

The film consists of four stories plus epilogue, set in 19th-century Sicily. THE OTHER SON - A mother spends her life waiting for news from her two sons (emigrated to America) while ignoring her third, because he is the reincarnation of the bandit who raped her. MOON SICKNESS - a newly-wed peasant girl discovers that her husband goes mad every full moon. She arranges for a male friend to protect her, but they end up in bed together just as the moon emerges from behind a cloud. (imdb)

The true story of the life of Gavino Ledda, the son of a Sardinian shepherd, and how he managed to escape his harsh, almost barbaric existence by slowly educating himself, despite violent opposition from his brutal father. (imdb)

While travelling to visit their grandfather, two children are told the story of a family curse that has lasted two hundred years... (imdb)

Young nobleman Baron Sergio Giuramondo, after discovering that his bride-to-be was the king's mistress, leaves Naples in disgust to become a monk. But his quest for perfect solitude is constantly interrupted by visitors hearing rumours that Sergio possesses miraculous powers, and by women who bet each other that they can successfully seduce him... (imdb)

One man cannot remarry as his wife is in an insane asylum; another returns to Italy after years in Africa to find his wife has become a nun; the Holy Church is barring the marriage of an Italian woman whose fiancé is a divorced foreigner; another woman's husband is in prison as her brother-in-law harasses her; then there is the wife who is almost killed by her own partner; and a pair of lovers who cannot divulge their relationship publicly.

Four stories of militancy unfold, tethered to the funeral of Palmiro Togliatti, the legendary leader of the Italian Communist Party. Ettore, a Venezuelan revolutionary in exile in Italy, must return to his country to assume the post of a deceased comrade. Turmoil breaks out in the marriage of Sebastiano, who works for the Communist Party, when he finds his wife in bed with another woman.

In a prehistoric age, a group of men called "Scorpionids" are forced to flee their homeland, destroyed by a volcanic eruption. They land on an island of peaceful farmers, but soon learn that these also live in the shadow of pending destruction by an even more powerful volcano. Instead of accepting another ship so they may proceed on their journey, the visitors try to convince the inhabitants to leave the threatened island. The young ones agree, but the elders prefer their home.

Early in the 19th century, Edward and Carlotta, in love 20 years ago, find each other and marry. After a year's bliss at his Tuscan villa, Edward begs to invite Otto, an architect and friend, to join them. She has forebodings of disaster, but relents. Otto arrives, and to balance the dynamics, Carlotta invites her teenage godchild Ottilia to join them. (imdb)

An anarchist leader (Fulvio) wishes to retire, as he is old and tired. He tries to hide himself, but his friends find him and insist he carries on helping them. (imdb)

Story of an Armenian family in Anatolia during the First World War and tragic events of genocide.

Political activist Salvatore returns to his native Sicily and stirs up trouble among the peasants, urging them to confront the Mafia and demand the right to plough their own fields. (imdb)

Two segments: In the first one Felice, a baritone who has had to give up his career because of a heart condition and now works as an accountant at the Opera, inexplicably spends his nights laughing in his sleep. When his best friend, a cripple, takes his life and his wife abandons him Felice decides to die himself. In the second segment two kidnappings in Sicily, the second of which took place a century before the present one, are compared. (imdb)

The performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar comes to an end and the performers are rewarded with rapturous applause. The lights go out; the actors leave the stage and return to their cells. They are all inmates of the Roman maximum security prison Rebibbia. One of them comments: 'Ever since I discovered art this cell has truly become a prison'. (mubi.com)

Sentenced to life imprisonment for illegal activities, Italian International member Giulio Manieri holds on to his political ideals while struggling against madness in the loneliness of his prison cell. (imdb)

Based on the collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio. A group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city, start telling various stories.

An Italian partisan torn between the resistance movement and his obsession with a young woman during World War II. (imdb)

A politic triangle love in italy after ww2.

At the end of the XIX century in Russia, Prince Dimitri Necklivdov is called as a jury-man in a trial. The defendant is Katiuscia Maslova, accused of murdering a merchant in order to rob him. Dimitri recognizes Katiuscia: she was the girl he seduced many years before. Dimitri decides to save her. (Baldinotto da Pistoia)

Three surreal funerals are intertwined by the murder of a Sicilian immigrant boy in Brooklyn. (imdb)

This documentary offers us a view of skating rink where anyone can enter at a minimal price. On another rink, however, are sportsmen in training some for speed skating and others for figure skating. Among the spectators are two children who stare at their champions with wide-open eyes.

Ignazio Buttitta, in front of a billboard with drawn depictions, tells of the problems of Sicily in the manner of Sicilian storytellers. Following are images on the miserable life of the populations in the shacks of the Sicilian countryside and the unpleasant conditions of a school. Poverty does not spare even the middle class, who live in such conditions that they are still forced to emigrate. Ignazio Buttitta explains how the natural riches of Sicily do not end up for the benefit of t