The Award

Un Ballo in Maschera

Live performance from Oper Leipzig, 26 November 2005.

The Scavengers

After World War II an Italian soldier returns to his hometown near the Alps and, unable to find a job, hooks up with a crotchety hermit who scavenges buried shells and bombs for scrap metal.

In the Summertime

A young man shares his fantasies with a young girl who is already on the threshold of disillusion. Will she respond to him?

Il Posto

With his family mired in financial troubles, Domenico moves to Milan, Italy, from his small town to get a job in lieu of furthering his education. A lack of options forces him to take a position as a messenger at a big company, where he hopes to receive a promotion soon. There, Domenico meets Antonietta, a young woman in a similar situation as himself. The two form a tentative relationship, but the soulless nature of their jobs threatens to keep them apart.

Tokyo Olympiad

This impressionistic portrait of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics pays as much attention to the crowds and workers as it does to the actual competitive events. Highlights include an epic pole-vaulting match between West Germany and America, and the final marathon race through Tokyo's streets. Two athletes are highlighted: Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila, who receives his second gold medal, and runner Ahamed Isa from Chad, representing a country younger than he is.

The Fiancés

A young man has a renewed interest in his girlfriend when he takes a job that separates the two.

The Tree of Wooden Clogs

On a turn-of-the-20th-century northern Italian farm, a group of sharecroppers eke out a threadbare existence. A priest advises Batisti and his wife Batistina that their young son Minec should be formally educated, so they sacrifice his help in the fields and send him to school. When Minec's wooden shoe breaks one day, Batisti--in an act of desperation--puts the family's future at risk to replace the clog.

The Wind Blows Round

The aging, conservative population of a small, sleepy village in the Italian Alps are surprised to see that a former French professor has settled there with his young wife and their three children to produce goat cheese, in order to escape the wrongs of civilization. At first they are suspicious of his unconventional ideas and lifestyle, then are conquered by the enthusiasm, kindness, helpfulness of the young family and start to see in them a possible rebirth of the place. But little by little misunderstandings, envy and conflicts take over.

Grigio

Grigio was a small stray dog, a mongrel for generations. He never had a real owner. For a while he followed one of those couples of itinerant musicians who wander through rural villages and the outskirts of big cities. It was one of them who, one day, gave him the name Grigio.

La valle di pietra

In the 18th Century, in Bohemia, a government surveyor meet a priest during a lunch and remained intrigued by him. Years later, in a stony valley, the two men meet again and form a deep friendship.

The Profession of Arms

In autumn of 1526, the Emperor, Charles V, sends his German landsknechts led by Georg von Frundsberg to march towards Rome. The inferior papal armies, commanded by Giovanni de'Medici, try to chase them in the midst of a harsh winter. Nevertheless, the Imperial armies manage to cross the rivers along their march and get cannons thanks to the maneuvers of its Lords. In a skirmish, Giovanni de'Medici is wounded in the leg by a falconet shot. The attempts to cure him fail and he dies. The Imperial armies assault Rome. The film is beautifully but unassumingly set, and shows the hard conditions in which war is waged and its lack of glory. It ends straightforwardly with the declaration made after the death of Giovanni de'Medici by the commanders of the armies in Europe of not using again fire weapons because of their cruelty.

Greenery Will Bloom Again

World War I, Italian north-eastern front after the 1917 bloody battles on the Altipiano. A group of soldiers face the difficulty of war in a story that unfolds in the space of one night. Events follow one after the other without any kind of pattern: the peaceful mountains suddenly become a place where men die. But every story told in this film is a true story.

The Legend of the Holy Drinker

Andreas Kartak, a homeless man living under the bridges of Paris, is lent 200 francs by a stranger as long as he promises to repay it to a local church when he can afford to. Kartak is determined to pay back his debt but circumstances, and his alcoholism, forever intervene.

Tickets

A train travels across Italy toward Rome. On board is a professor who daydreams a conversation with a love that never was, a family of Albanian refugees who switch trains and steal a ticket, three brash Scottish soccer fans en route to a match, and a complaining widow traveling to a memorial service for her late husband who's accompanied by a community-service volunteer who's assisting her. Interactions among these Europeans turn on class and nationalism, courtesy and rudeness, and opportunities for kindness.

Genesis: The Creation and the Flood

An all-enveloping darkness. Suddenly, a child's voice, frightened, questioning, pierces the darkness... The first flickering rays of light begin to sculpt mysterious shapes out of the darkness... Among them, a very old man. He reassures the child, exhorting him to see the wonders of the earth. And it is with this child's eyes that we will witness the creation of the world.

Rainbow: A Private Affair

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.

Team Thor: Part 2

A continuation of the documentary spoof of what Thor and his roommate Darryl were up to during the events of "Captain America: Civil War". While Cap and Iron Man duke it out, Thor tries to pay Darryl his rent in Asgardian coins.

Dinner for One

A very old woman wants to have dinner with her friends. As they are all dead, the butler has to play the role of every guest.