Vincenzo Cerami

Life Is Beautiful

A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.

Beach House

Summer Sunday at a small beach house at the coast of Rome. Many people and stories: women's basketball team, two sports-obsessed soldiers, two men with their girlfriends and the priest with a big secret, an elderly couple with their pregnant granddaughter, and engagemented couple wanting to have sex for the first time.

Pinocchio

Roberto Benigni adapts the classic children's tale by Carlo Collodi for the big-budget family-oriented comedy Pinocchio.

Secrets Secrets

Young terrorist Laura shoots both a judge and a comrade, and over time her violent act becomes a thread linking the lives and fates of several other women. Each has her own secret, including the lawyer who listens to Laura as if in a ‘trance’: moments before, she discovered her husband was cheating.

The Monster

A vicious serial sex killer is on the loose, and landscape gardener and shop-window outfitter Loris is the prime suspect, thanks to his unfortunate habit of getting caught in compromising situations (for which there is always a totally innocent explanation that the police fail to spot). Undercover policewoman Jessica is assigned by eccentric police psychologist Taccone to follow Loris.

The Tiger and the Snow

Love and injury in time of war. Attilio de Giovanni teaches poetry in Italy. He has a romantic soul, and women love him. But he is in love with Vittoria, and the love is unrequited. Every night he dreams of marrying her, in his boxer shorts and t-shirt, as Tom Waits sings. Vittoria travels to Iraq with her friend, Fuad, a poet; they are there with the second Gulf War breaks out. Vittoria is injured. Attilio must get to her side, and then, as war rages around him, he must find her the medical care she needs. In war, does love conquer all?

Open Doors

Tommaso Scalia is a man who commits three murders: he kills his superior who sacked him, the man who replaced him and his wife. He wants a quick trial and an early execution, but an earnest, principled assistant judge looks for a way to save the murderer from being shot, because he does not belive in capital punishment.

Belle du Seigneur

English-language adaptation of Albert Cohen's epic Swiss tale of a tortured love affair between a high-ranking Jewish official and the Protestant wife of one of his employees.

Johnny Stecchino

Good hearted but not very wordly-wise, Dante is happy driving the school bus for a group of mentally handicapped children, while feeling he is somehow missing out on life and love. So he is very excited when after nearly being knocked down by her car he meets Maria, who seems immediately enamoured of him. He is soon invited to her sumptuous Palermo villa, little suspecting that this is part of a plot. He bears an amazing likeness to Maria's stool-pigeon gangster husband and it would be convenient for them if the mobster, in the shape of Dante, was seen to be dead and buried.

The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Along a rocky, barren coastline, Jesus begins teaching, primarily using parables. He attracts disciples; he's stern, brusque, and demanding. His parables often take on the powers that be, so he and his teachings come to the attention of the Pharisees, the chief priests, and elders. They conspire to have him arrested, beaten, tried, and crucified, just as he prophesied to his followers.

The Hawks and the Sparrows

A man and his son take an allegorical stroll through life with a talking bird that spouts social and political philosophy.

Amorosa presenza

From the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, the world premiere of ‘Amorosa presenza’, loosely based on the novel of the same name by Vincenzo Cerami, and the opera debut of Oscar-winning composer Nicola Piovani. Conducted by Maestro Piovani, with stage direction by Chiara Muti.

The Manual of Love

Four intertwined stories on the joys and sorrows of love.

The Dirty Outlaws

An outlaw masquerades as a blind man's son in order to trick him into a cache of Gold. After a while he grows attached to the family and all goes well until the outlaws gang comes through town...

Forgotten Pistolero

Mann is a gunman informed by a childhood friend that his father was murdered years earlier by his mother and her lover. To make matters worse, Mann's sister, who is in love with his friend, is held under the thumb of his murderous mom. The two gunmen ride off to have a reckoning with her.

High Frequency

A boy who operates a ham radio and a man who works at a satellite relay station witness the same murder thousands of miles apart and have to figure out how to warn the next potential victim.

The Voyage of Captain Fracassa

Serafina, Pulcinella and Isabella are three lusty, beautiful members of a traveling theatrical troupe touring the French countryside in the 17th century, leaving in their wake a crop of broken hearts. This picaresque romantic comedy is based on the 1863 novel Le Capitaine Fracasse by Theophile Gauthier. In the story, the company stops at a castle owned by the scruffy young Baron de Sigognac, who is deeply smitten with the charms of the middle-aged (and somewhat morose) beauty Serafina. He decides to travel with the company, and Serafina perversely tries to get him to woo the youngest of the company, the newly bereaved Isabella.

An Average Little Man

A middle-aged government accountant is determined to secure a stable job for his son before retiring, willing to go to great lengths to achieve his goal.

Uomo d'acqua dolce

Antonio takes a hit on his head when he's out to buy a jar of mushrooms for his wife, and loses his memory. He reappears five years later unaware that time has passed.

A Leap in the Dark

Mauro, a judge, is worried about his older sister Marta, who took care of him since he was a boy, and now suffers from mental illness and suicidal thoughts. She seems to recover from her depression when Mauro acquaints her with Giovanni, a brilliant actor at the edge of legality. However, Mauro becomes unconsciously jealous of their relationship.

The Legend of Princess Parva

The island of Kiam was once a paradise place with a kind Maharaja as a ruler. But one day the villainous Malaw killed the island’s ruler and deprived the Crown Prince Shiva of the throne. The insidious Malaw had the prince locked up in a dungeon in the palace’s underground labyrinth, and he announced to the Kiam residents that he would kill Shiva if they only tried to rebel. Then the Old Sage Swami, aided by programmer Agni, came into contact with the Light of Crystal. That’s what he called a girl named Parva, who embodied radiant innocence and was born of the same astral combination as Prince Shiva. Only she and her love could save the prince and bring peace back to the island of Kiam.

Blindman

A blind, but deadly, gunman, is hired to escort fifty mail order brides to their miner husbands. His business partners double cross him, selling the women to bandit Domingo. Blindman heads into Mexico in pursuit.

Blame it on Paradise

A former convict discovers that his son has been adopted by a couple living on the mountains and tries to establish a contact with him

The Eyes, the Mouth

A rich Italian's shocking suicide means different things to his twin brother, mother and pregnant lover.

Adrian

2068: in a dystopic Milan, a simple watchmaker called Adrian takes on a corrupt regime, assuming various identities with the aim of awakening popular consciences.

Rockpolitik

Benito: The Rise and Fall of Mussolini

After rapidly ascending the ranks of the Socialist Party, Benito Mussolini created a Fascist state in 1920s Italy through his use of propaganda and diplomacy and led his people in a bloody war that would ultimately result in his downfall.