Pina Menichelli

Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?

In this mesmerizing collage of silent Italian melodrama, found-footage filmmaker Peter Delpeut (Lyrical Nitrate) affectionately captures the spirit of the World War One-era cinema diva. In all-but-lost gems such as La donna nuda (1914), and Tigre reale (1916), superstars such as Lyda Borelli and Pina Menichelli portrayed heroines teetering dangerously between defiant indulgence in sexual passion and hysterical remorse at their own cruelties. Delpeut’s inventive celebration of Black Romanticism is both striking and heartbreaking in its composition—a beautifully woven narrative of tempted fate and self-torment, elegantly guided by Loek Dikker’s original score. Zeitgeist Films is proud to present Delpeut’s stunningly experimental work in all its heaving bosomed, luridly tinted glory.

"Tigre Reale" (1916) was the film that consolidated Frau Menichelli's stardom, a film more than suitable for her performing skills and silent idiosyncrasy that any silent diva would kill to star in… In "Tigre Reale", Frau Menichelli performs the part of Frau Natka, a Russian countess with a troublesome past and an uncertain future. She was married to a revolutionary and the matrimony ended in tragedy. She likes to flirt with men but due to her traumatic sentimental past, she doesn't allow herself attachments. That is until she meets a young diplomat who will help her to make up her mind and exorcize her old sentimental traumas.

A film based on Gabriele D'Annunzio's novel The Flame. Pina Menichelli plays a vamp who ruins a painter's life just for the fun of it.

An unknown Menichelli, a young and lively beauty, is desired by two stars of the Italian scene: Ruggero Ruggeri and Amleto Novelli. This breezy story based on an comedy unreleased in Italy at that time is built around Ruggeri, who plays the role of a playboy father who wants to turn into the family delights rejoining his son until then neglected. Novelli, a little uncomfortable in a role that would have required ten years less, is the good-hearted rustic son. Pina Menichelli, adorned with flowers, wanders about on her bicycle, between not only two men, but also two lifestyles. In this role, she shows off a naturalness that will surprise people who know her only for her decadent performances. Sometimes, though, a dark glimpse reveals the character of the actress, that will stand out in the imagination of the public.

The film is a 35 meters long fragment, the remainder of a strongly decayed print, enough though to let us recognize the diva Pina Menichelli, here happy bride first and then melancholy loner. A sign on the print has allowed to identify it as the film “Gemma di Sant’Eremo”, a title that according to Vittorio Martinelli, reveals the reshaped version of “La colpa”, played two years before by the Italian diva and never distributed for censorship reasons.

Antonio is jealous of his wife Clara and follows her everywhere; one day he sees her walking with a man on the street. He immediately becomes convinced that they went together to the movies (instead they went separate ways). Blinded by jealousy, Antonio wants to enter in the cinema hall and make a killing; but the director of the cinema stops him, and goes into the cinema room saying: "Outside a husband is waiting for his unfaithful wife to come out and kill her. Please, those of you who do not have a clear conscience, go to the emergency exit." In a moment almost all the spectators disappear.

Filippo Derblay, a young man of humble birth, became, thanks to his job, the owner of the ironworks. He is secretly in love with Clara, the daughter of the Marquis of Beaulieu, who lost all his fortune. Clara is engaged to the Duke of Bligny, a vain cousin of her. After learning of Clara’s financial disgrace, the Duke prefers to engage to Atenaide Moulinet, a social climber and daughter of the industrialist Moulinet, the “King of Cacao”. To get revenge, Clara agrees to marry Filippo Derblay, despite she considers him an upstart and she despises him. But Filippo, who loves her deeply, can’t tolerate to be humiliated, will prove how much her prejudice was wrong and, at the end, he will win her love. Among the most captivating aspects of the film, the intense performance of the great diva Pina Menichelli and the high level of the photography, that captures spaces from life as the remarkable images of the factory and the workers at the machinery.

A romance story about Jenny and the men that love her.

Italian Silent Film

Claudio is married to Cesarina, a frivolous and unfaithful woman. After the death of their only son their marriage is cold. While his wife lives her free life, Claudio is dedicated to the development of sophisticated weapons, elaborating the project of a new cannon; but smitten by the virtuous Jew Rebecca he can not surrender to his feelings because his religion prevents him from getting a divorce.

The story of the film «La storia di una donna», in which Pina Menichelli played the main role, is typical for «divas-films» – it’s about beauty and weakness of a woman, insidiousness and cowardice of men, inevitable destiny and mad passion…