Vittorio Cottafavi

Messalina was the Roman noblewoman who inveigled ageing emperor Claudio into marriage. Once ensconced on the throne, Messalina launched a reign of terror that shook the empire to its very foundations. The subject of countless film treatments, Rome's most villified empress is herein played by British actress Belinda Lee.

A warrior returning home to his country must battle giant bats, three-headed dogs and a vicious dragon to save his wife, and his people, from the machinations of an evil ruler.

King Androcles of Thebes commands a ship in search of a threat to Greece, predicted by an atmospheric oracle. Hercules is part of the crew, but the strongman falls overboard in a thick fog. Washed ashore, he saves a young Ismene from Proteus, an evil, shape-shifting creature. Ismene takes Hercules to Atlantis, where he discovers that her mother, Queen Antinea, has captured Androcles. Hercules schemes to rescue him and thwart Antinea's dream of world conquest.

Marching down the Italian peninsula to sack ancient Rome, Etruscan warrior Drusco instead offers to hold back his onslaught if the Romans hand over hostages, including Clelia, the sexy leader of a clan of woman warriors. But before long, intrigue and betrayal unravel the fragile peace. Directors Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia and Vittorio Cottafavi helm this vintage sword-and-sandal epic.

An engineer has a romance with the mistress of a rich banker but she sacrifices herself,returning to the rich man, for the best interests of the lover and his family.

Octavio secretly sent his consul Curridio to Alexandria in a final attempt to reach peace. In the city, he meets Berenice, a mysterious and beautiful dancer who falls in love. Actually, the dancer is the queen Cleopatra who leads a double life using this name.

Don Fernando rallies peasants and townspeople to overthrow Moorish occupiers in medieval Spain.

In a dystopian future, two superpowers have shared the Earth, and both try to conquer the Solar System. The penal colony of Venus becomes the missile base of one of the two superpowers, but the deportees oppose the project.

A reconstruction of Napoleon Bonaparte's years after Waterloo, from his exile to St. Helena until his death under mysterious circumstances: between hopes of escape and illness, the former emperor dictates his memoirs. Directed by Vittorio Cottafavi, the film is based on a story by Roberto Mazzucco, with a screenplay by Cottafavi and Giovanni Bormioli.

Marcus Numidius, a Roman tribune sent to Armenia to put down a gladiators' revolt, captures the rebels' popular leader, Asclepius. Princess Amira, with ambitions of being Queen and jealous of Asclepius' popularity, plans his death in the arena by substituting a lion for his human opponent

An adaptation of Joseph Conrad's first novel, taking us to the Malaysian mangrove forests against a backdrop of colonial decadence.

An official, betrayed by his lady servant, joins musketeers such as Athos, while she turns into a countess and a spy that will eventually be executed.

Episodic film with flashbacks about the lives of some sick and infirm people travelling on the same train, making a pilgrimage to the shine of Our Lady of Loreto.

Cottafavi's adaptation of the Greek tragedy for RAI.

Liana, an architecture graduate, is about to get married until she is confronted with the fact she is sacrificing the rest of her life for a man she barely knows. So begins a series of romantic encounters in which Liana tries to find her freedom and happiness, but which will ultimately lead her to a tragic fate.

Leo is a young man trying to make a living without any success. Through fortuitous circumstances, he is assigned by the director of a big firm to accompany for one night the daughter of the firm's accountant, Titi. Leo pretends then to be the son of a tycoon and takes her to a luxurious restaurant.

Inspired to the real story of the Carabiniere Salvo D'Acquisto. We see how, to save 22 hostages from dead sentence by Nazi, he decided to sacrifice himself.

The story of a peasant girl of fifteen, Mariute, who comes down from the Carnia mountains to the Friulian plains with her mother at the beginning of the summer.

A former war captain buys a wrecked ship, fixes it and starts a freight business with some fellow navy members.

A group of royalists during the French Revolution make several attempts to rescue Marie Antoinette from prison, in this combination of genres: swashbuckler, melodrama, psychological drama, and historical tragedy. Based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.

In the forested slopes surrounding the rural Tuscan village of Tirli, a group of lumberjacks work long hours felling trees in the hopes of making an ample profit. Amongst them, a recently widowed father struggles to overcome the pain of his wife’s death, whilst juggling the fresh financial pressures of raising two motherless children.

On the Carso front in 1915, Italians and Austrians fight each other without mercy in a suffocating battle. In the trenches, soldiers discuss their lives while the war rages on.

Faithful TV adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy.

It is in the late 1930s, and Cesare Pavese, a writer, with two of his friends meets a very uninhibited noble couple.

Vittorio Cottafavi's four part series on the life of Christopher Colombus

Part of a trilogy of “Famous Lives” conceived by Angelo Guglielmi, Vittorio Cottafavi's television series is a rigorous reconstruction of the biography of the great poet, alternating between fiction and documentary sequences.

Set in 1973, a team of scientists decipher a mysterious signal from space and discover that it provides instructions to build a powerful super-computer. Once built, this computer provokes argument between two of leading team members, Fleming and Dawnay, over the machine's real intentions as it provides further instructions to create a living organism, which Dawnay starts to develop. Later it appears to compel lab assistant Christine to commit suicide, and when the organism is fully developed, it appears in the exact form of Christine, and named Andromeda. But what is the purpose of this "creature"?

The young writer Vanya is in love with Natasha, the beautiful daughter of Ikmenev, the man who raised him like a father. But the girl is infatuated with Alyosha, the son of Prince Valkovsky, an evil and unscrupulous individual who hinders the relationship by ruining Ikmenev, his administrator, and ensuring that his son chooses the rich and noble Katia. The arrival of Nelly, a fragile and restless orphan, will bring to light a distant secret and allow Vanya and Natasha to find themselves and begin their love affair. Vittorio Cottafavi expertly delves into a world full of intrigue, twists and turns, and deep emotions.

Renato Rascel dons the priest-detective's cassock and, with irony and wit, embodies the character of Father Brown in the six episodes that make up the series. Endowed with a great humanity that allows him to “read” hearts, the protagonist, assisted by the repentant thief Flambeau, solves the cases that arise by resorting to psychological insights that are every bit as good as those of Agatha Christie or Georges Simenon. The series, produced by Rai and broadcast on Rai Uno in prime time, was a huge success with critics and audiences alike and also marked Renato Rascel's personal breakthrough as a comedy actor. He also wrote the theme song, which topped the charts for many weeks.