Vittorio Taviani

A tale of the three funerals for the ashes of Italian writer Luigi Pirandello intertwined with a murder committed by a young Sicilian immigrant boy in 1930s Brooklyn for what is described as a surreal, grotesque, complex narrative.

The Lark Farm is set in a small Turkish town in 1915. It deals with the genocide of Armenians, looking closely at the fortunes, or rather, misfortunes of one wealthy Armenian family.

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.

The Benedetti family's wealth comes from gold stolen from the French army during the 18th century. When Jean (Michael Vartan), the lieutenant guarding the coins -- and lover of Elisabette Benedetti (Galatea Ranzi) -- is executed for a crime he did not commit, Elisabette curses the family. Bad luck travels from generation to generation. As the latest Benedettis tell their children about their eccentric grandfather, the children worry that the family curse will be passed on.

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.

Summer 1943, Piedmont, Italy. Milton loves Fulvia who plays with his love: she only likes the depth of his thought and the letters he writes to her. One year later, Milton has joined the Resistance and fights beside other partisans. He learns during a conversation that Fulvia was secretly in love with his best friend Giorgio, a partisan like him. Milton decides to go find Giorgio in the Langhe region of Italy with all its misty hills...But Giorgio has just been arrested by the Fascists.

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.

It's 1348. The plague has brutally hit Florence. A group of then young people, seven women and three men, rebel against the feeling of death that is about to swallow them. They flee the city and find refuge in an abandoned villa in the Tuscan hills. Here, between moral doubts and the tasks needed to survive, they kill time by telling each other stories until they will decide to return. The stories are varied - tragic, bizarre, funny or erotic - but common and central to all of them is the female presence.

After the 1815 Restoration, an aging revolutionary finds himself reluctantly involved in an attempted insurrection in Southern Italy while growing increasingly disillusioned with his cause.

Inmates at a prison in Rome rehearse for a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Five stories center on a werewolf, a feudal landlord, peasants, a ghost, and a mother and her sons.

A melodrama supervised by Roberto Rossellini.

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. The peasants refuse to help him, and Salvatore is marked by the Mafia as a troublemaker.

After the bankruptcy of their father's stonemasonry firm, brothers Nicola and Andrea emigrate to America to restore their fortunes. After many adventures and near-disasters, they end up in Hollywood, designing sets for D.W. Griffith, and marry beautiful actresses. However, tragedy strikes with the arrival of World War I, which finds the brothers fighting on opposite sides...

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.

Based on Leo Tolstoy's novel, Father Sergius, Night Sun stars Julian Sands as Sergio, a nobleman in 18th-century Italy who is expected to marry a duchess, Nastassja Kinski. Upon learning that she was previously the King's mistress, Sergio turns his back on society and becomes a monk. While at the hermitage he tries to resist all sexual temptations before him and soon becomes known as a miracle worker. Eventually he succumbs to a young seductress and knowing he is undeserving of the adulation, leaves the hermitage to travel around as a homeless beggar.

An 18th-century true story about a rebel and his lover's attempt to overthrow the Italian monarchy.

Romantic entanglements develop between three young Italians frustrated by their current economic and social status.

After an architect (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) is invited to the home of his associate, the harmony of the place comes undone with the visitor's attraction to someone.

This film is very much a docudrama which portrays the difficulties of Italian life circa 1963 due to the absence of a divorce law. Five scenarios with different actors portray realistic situations where divorce is clearly warranted but, because marriage was strictly in the purview of the Catholic Church at that time, which strictly forbade divorce, these people are shown to suffer the consequences in their daily lives. Italy got its first civilian divorce law in 1970.

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.

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.