Backlog

A man returns to visit his native Sicily after living in New York for a long time. He learns about the Sicilian way of life from stylized conversations with an orange picker, his fellow train passengers, his mother, and a knife-sharpener.

Gelsomina's family functions according to very particular rules. First of all, Gelsomina, at twelve years of age, practically runs the family. Her three younger sisters obey her and work under her watchful eye. But the outside world mustn't know anything about their lifestyle, and they should be kept away from it, well-protected in their isolated countryside home. Gelsomina's father, Wolfgang, is a foreigner and Gelsomina is the future queen of this strange and improbable kingdom he has constructed for them. A male heir would have been better, of course, but Gelsomina is strong and determined and what's more, she has a special talent for beekeeping and making honey. It's Gelsomina that retrieves the swarms from the trees, who organizes the honey extraction, and she is the one that carries the hives. Whilst all around them the countryside is being burnt up by pesticides, rural life is falling apart and becoming something different, a TV show competition arrives from the city offering a cash prize and a luxury cruise for the Most Traditional Family. "Village Wonders" is presented by the good fairy, Milly Catena. Gelsomina wants to participate in the contest, but Wolfgang won't even consider it. Something else is tormenting him: the new European laws regarding farm produce. If they don't get their honey lab in order, with washable walls and well-defined working spaces, they will have to cease production. They have to work very hard to expand the bee colonies, and get the lab up to standard. In his desperate search for cheap labor, Wolfgang agrees to take on a delinquent German boy, Martin, who comes from a youth rehabilitation exchange program. The tension mounts: between a silent evasive boy onto whom Wolfgang projects his desire for a son, and, counteracting this, the outward reaching force of Gelsomina that will stop at nothing just in order to see the good fairy TV show hostess again. Nothing will be the same at the end of this summer for Gelsomina and her family. An extraordinary summer, when the strict rules that hold the family together, begin to break...

The story of a difficult birth set against the backdrop of child trafficking in Castel Volturno, an area outside Naples known for being the most lawless area in Italy.

The movie is based on a true story. On 16 March 1978 Aldo Moro, the former Italian Prime Minister was kidnapped in Via Fani by the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades), a militant Communist Italian group. He was the main supporter of the Compromesso Storico (Hystorical Compromise), which had to lead to the first Italian government supported by both the Christian Democrats and the Communists, in a period of social, economic and political crises. During the attack his five escort agents were all killed. Moro's corpse was found on 9 May 1978 in a car parked in a street between the headquarters of the Christian Democrat Party and the Communist Party. This movie is inspired by this tragic event which traumatize the whole nation. It focuses mainly on the relationship between the prisoner and his guards through the eyes of Chiara, the young woman whose role is to guard the prisoner. The movie portraits Chiara's life (her job as a librarian, the ordinary household) on one side and the political process which is held against Moro by her friends on the other, while they are waiting for a revolution to come. She is drawn between these two aspects and she begins to doubt her political commitment (she cries when she listens to Moro's letter to the Pope). The news tell the people what is going on in Italy (some politicians ask for the death penalty for the kidnappers, the Pope Paul VI appeals to the terrorist for Moro's release). The State will not bend by accepting the conditions established by the terrorists to release the prisoner. The Brigate Rosse sentence Moro to death and the story comes to its tragic end, although the eyes and the heart of the imagination show Aldo Moro walking happy and free in Rome.

Neil and Alice Bennett (

Journalist Jep Gambardella has charmed and seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades. Since the legendary success of his one and only novel, he has been a permanent fixture in the city's literary and social circles, but when his 65th birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.

Alessandro, a young epileptic with paranoid inclinations, decides to relieve Augusto, the only sound brother, from the burden of a numerous family plagued with hereditary diseases. After a first aborted attempt, the dreadful series of accidents/murders is started by pushing the blind mother into a ravine. Then comes the turn of Leone, the idiotic brother. Will Alessandro be able to bring to completion his obsessive project ?

Splendor is the name of an old movie theater managed by Jordan (Mastroianni), who inherited it from his father. The theater is in decay and only generates debts and trouble, but Jordan gets aid in his almost quixotian quest from projectionist Luigi (Troisi) and ushurette Chantale (Vlady). However, Jordan is finally forced to sell the Splendor to businessman Lo Fazio (Piperno), which plans to transform it in some kind of furniture store. When Jordan leaves the theater for the last time (the very first scene), he recalls the glorious days of Splendor and movies in general.

The story of three families living in three apartments in the same bourgeois condominium.

Maria, Pinuccia, Lia, Katia and Antonella are five sisters who live in an apartment in Palermo. When Antonella accidentally dies, the sisters' relationships are turned upside down for the rest of their lives.

From Academy Award-winning writer and director Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo, The Great Beauty, The Young Pope), comes the story of a boy, Fabietto Schisa, in the tumultuous Naples of the 1980s. The Hand of God is a story full of unexpected joys, such as the arrival of football legend Diego Maradona, and an equally unexpected tragedy. Fate plays its part, joy and tragedy intertwine, and Fabietto's future is set in motion. Sorrentino returns to his hometown to tell his most personal story, a tale of fate and family, sports and cinema, love and loss.

Set in 1950s Rio de Janeiro, the film revolves around two sisters, living restricted lives with their conservative parents. However, each nourishes a passionate dream: Eurídice of becoming a renowned pianist; Guida of finding love. In a dramatic turn of events, they are separated and forced to live apart. They take control of their destinies, while never giving up hope of finding one another.

With a fervent yearning for respectability and enough money to buy herself a brand-new life in Rome, the uninhibited, fearless, determined former streetwalker Mamma Roma renounces her ignominious past to reunite with her loafing 16-year-old son Ettore. Free at last from her disgusting pimp and ex-lover Carmine, Roma is bent on making an honest living running a humble vegetable stall, but a malicious extortion scheme and the equally insidious menace of exposure threaten to put an end to her zealous aspirations for a decent bourgeois existence. For his own sake, Ettore must be spared the violence of the adult world; nevertheless, can a lone single mother protect her only son from the same snares that wounded her youth?

These are hard days for Margherita, who is going through a very difficult period in her life. On a professional level first, the middle-aged film director, has started wondering whether the committed movies she has been making are really an actual reflection of the world she lives in ; on top of this, she is in conflict not only with her crew but also, and primarily, with Barry Huggins, a well-known American actor of Italian origin, who proves awfully bad and uncontrollable. On the personal level, things do not get any better - it could even be said they are worse. Margherita has just left her life partner and she has become unable to relate to her teenage daughter. As for her mother, she is now seriously ill and her doctor tries to prepare her brother and her for the worst. Which is unacceptable to the weakened woman who can find salvation only in denial of reality. Will she manage to face up to the facts and to come to terms with herself?

A mosaic of several intertwined stories questioning the meaning of life, love and hope, set during the last six days in the life of Eluana Englaro, a young woman who spent 17 years in a vegetative state.

Rome, 1976. Valerio is ten years old and has a lively imagination. His life as a child is turned upside down when, with his mother Gina, he witnesses an attack on his father Alfonso by a terrorist group. From that moment on, fear and a sense of vulnerability leave a dramatic mark on the feelings of the whole family. But it is precisely in those difficult days that Valerio gets to know Christian, a boy not much older than him. Solitary, rebellious and shameless, he seems to have appeared out of nowhere. That meeting, in a summer filled with discoveries, will change their lives forever.

Months after Jesús (Juan Jesús Varela) set out on foot for the U.S. with a friend from their rural town in Guanajuato, Magdalena (Mercedes Hernandez) has lost contact with her beloved adolescent son. Determined to unravel his fate, Magdalena soon finds herself in over her head, entangled in an expansive crime syndicate and labyrinth of disorienting lies on an increasingly surreal journey to uncover the truth. At the mercy of those with the power and courage to help her find closure, Magdalena's path fortuitously converges with that of Miguel (David Illescas), a young man not unlike her son Jesús, returning from U.S. deportation. Ensconced within the realm of magical-realism while exhibiting remarkable restraint, IDENTIFYING FEATURES is an impressive, symbolic re-imagining of a culture adrift and seeking spiritual reunification. Winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Audience and Screenplay Awards at the Sundance Film Festival.

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.