Roberto Faenza

In 1990s Palermo, Pino Puglisi is a priest from the neglected Brancaccio neighborhood dedicated in helping kids to get off the streets and creating an embracing place of hope and solidarity in his church, which means trouble for the local Mafia. He continues his solitary fight until the bitter end.

A NYPD officer imprisons and tortures an admitted cop-killer, but finds the tables turned when his victim refuses to break and in fact urges more punishment.

This short film captures the vibrant moments, places, and emotions experienced and recorded over 24 hours in Bangkok, as seen through the eyes of talented Italian directors, producers, and actors who were invited to visit Thailand’s capital. Each of them documented unexpected experiences of the city at different times of the day and night. The result is an honest and unpredictable visual diary that reveals surprising perspectives of Bangkok.

Much-censored documentary encompassing thirty years of Italian politics under the governance of the Christian Democracy (DC), entirely composed of — occasionally dubbed — archival footage.

1968, London. Luca is living his 'swinging' years away from duties, while his father wants him to take the reins of the family business. He plots to have him kidnapped and placed in a sanitarium, where the young man undergoes electroshock therapy until 'normalised'. Luca is then made to marry a woman who is actually a psychiatrist hired to turn him into a perfect businessman.

Zurich, 1905. Nineteen-year-old Russian Sabina Spielrein is put by her parents in a psychiatric hospital, suffering from a severe form of hysteria and refusing to eat. A compassionate doctor, Carl Gustav Jung, takes her under his care and, for the first time, experiments with the psychoanalytical method of his teacher Sigmund Freud. Thus is born a sweeping story of love and passion, of body and soul, soaring to the utmost heights, but also plunging to the darkest depths of the 20th century.

Precocious yet sensitive teenager James has a deep perception of the world but no idea how to live in it. Finding no help from his divorced parents nor his older memoir-writing sister, he decides to reject the beliefs adults try to push on him, starting with the college career that is looming over his last summer in New York, and embarks instead on a search for wisdom through nontraditional means...

In 18th-century Sicily, deaf-mute highborn Marianna Ucrìa is forced to marry at age 13, bearing three children before even turning 16, when she finally gives birth to a boy. Despite everything, she'll find a way to emancipate herself from the oppressive social conventions of the time.

In Prague, a musician is consumed by jealousy for his beautiful girlfriend. He hires a private eye to spy on her, but the plan backfires...

Olga's life is shattered when her husband leaves her. This makes her fall into a period of self-degradation and self-destructive behaviors.

After their son dies, a Jewish family moves from London to Israel in an attempt to piece their lives back together. The mother finds a way out of her depression through a relationship with a younger man—which doesn't seem to bother her husband. Meanwhile, their daughter begins dating a Palestinian handyman.

Lisbon, 1938. Mr. Pereira is the editor of the culture section of an evening paper. Although fascism is on the rise in Europe, like in nearby civil war Spain or even inside Portugal itself in the form of Salazar's regime, Pereira only concerns himself with writing bios and translating French novels. Things change after he hires a young writer as his assistant, getting to know also his girlfriend – both opponents to the regime – and reluctantly helps them when they begin to get in trouble for subversive activities. Eventually, he's forced to take a stand...

In pre-WWI Austria-Hungary, a physician struggles with his decision about which woman will he marry.

A Jewish boy living in Amsterdam at the onset of World War II is taken to a concentration camp with his parents. Based on the memoir of Holocaust survivor Jona Oberski.

Italy, WWII. After his anti-fascist mother is arrested, Mario spends his childhood on the streets. In 1947 they are miraculously reunited and start a new life in America. Based on the life of Mario Capecchi, 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Roberto Faenza's Nouvelle Vague-inspired graduation film at CSC, shot in 1964 with a then-unknown Raffaella Carrà in the lead role.

Lawsuit-proof satirical "unauthorized biography" of Silvio Berlusconi told using only words spoken by the man himself in interviews, rallies, or other public statements.

The extraordinary life of the great poet Alda Merini: from mental illness to motherhood, from impossible loves to access to culture and fame. An unprecedented and fascinating portrait of a contemporary icon.

In late 19th-century Sicily, the noble Uzeda family—whose lineage dates back to the ancient viceroys that ruled those lands—fights to preserve its waning power in the face of the newly unified Italian regime.

In 1983 an English journalist travels to Italy to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a young vatican girl.

Rome, August 7, 1990. 20-year-old Simonetta Cesaroni is killed with 29 stab wounds in her workplace in broad daylight.

After World War II, Anita, a young survivor of Auschwitz, becomes involved in an intense and passionate affair that almost shatters her until she gains the strength to start a new life.

Italy, from the '50s to the present day, told through the eyes of generations of children captured in Rai's (Italian public TV) archival footage.

Hillary Clinton, Roberto Saviano, Jonathan Franzen and others weigh-in on the Elena Ferrante "craze" and what makes her work - and her mysterious persona - so uniquely captivating.