A girl mysteriously disappears on a yachting trip. While her lover and her best friend search for her across Italy, they begin an affair. Antonioni's penetrating study of the idle upper class offers stinging observations on spiritual isolation and the many meanings of love.

Based on the Nikolai Gogol story but set in modern-day Italy (1952), The overcoat is the story of a poor city hall clerk (Renato Rascel) whose only desire is to buy a new overcoat. The town Mayor (Giulio Stival) is planning a reception for some visiting VIPs in honor of a new, wasteful piece of construction. The clerk bungles an assignment for the reception and is fired. But when he stumbles into a bribery scheme concerning the architects, in order...

Rising quickly from within the ranks of the socialist party, Benito Mussolini became local chief of the Italian Socialist Party at a young age, where he developed his instinct for power and his talent for intrigue as he played off various sections of the left against each other. His dangerous rise to power ultimately played out against the backdrop of World War I and gave rise to a new and frightening government--Fascism

Shun Li works in a textile factory near Rome, slowly paying off the broker that brought her from China to Italy, while saving money so she can bring her young son to join her. She is suddenly transferred to work as a bartender at a pub in a small town along the Venetian Lagoon. The pub is the hangout of the local fishermen, including Bepi, a handsome old Slav immigrant nicknamed "The Poet." A tender, delicate friendship grows between Shun Li and Bepi....

Audrey Hepburn's portrays of a modern-day princess, rebelling against royal obligations, exploring Rome on her own. She meets an American newspaperman (Gregory Peck) who, seeking an exclusive story, pretends ignorance of her true identity. But his plan falters as they fall in love. Audrey Hepburn won an **Academy Award,** a **BAFTA Award** and a **Golden Globe** for her performance. Nominated for a Golden Lion at the **Venice International Film Festival.**...

A forgotten classic, Crime of love is a story about two factory workers living in Northern Italy who form a romantic connection. The woman, torn between the freedoms of the North and her traditional Sicilian values, slowly allows herself to love, then marry, her co-worker. Soon after her wedding, she dies as a result of industrial pollution from her job. The film gives a good idea of the north-south mentality clash in Italy. The workers from the...

Nostalghia is Andrei Tarkovsky's brooding late masterpiece, a darkly poetic vision of exile. It was the first of his features to be made outside of Russia, the home to which he would never return. Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word "nostalghia" conveys "the love for your homeland and the melancholy that arises from being far away." This debilitating form of homesickness is embodied in the film by Andrei (Oleg Yankovsky, The Mirror), a Russian...

The theater in Rome's Rebibbia Prison. A performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar has just ended amidst much applause. The lights dim on the actors and they become prisoners once again as they are accompanied back to their cells. Six months earlier, The warden and a theater director speak to the inmates about a new project, the staging of Julius Caesar in the prison. The first step is casting, a process both vivid and energetic. The second step...

Bohemian London artist Robert returns to Italy with his estranged son Jack to make a quick sale of the house they inherited from his late wife. Neither expects to find the once beautiful villa in such a state of disrepair. Renovations go badly, with father and son soon finding themselves at odds.

While on vacation, a just-divorced writer buys a villa in Tuscany on a whim, hoping it will be the start of a change for the better in her life. Along the way she finds that sometimes what seems like a mistake is really a blessing.