Cinema - Italian films

Italian cinema: Fantasy

Amarcord (1973)

Federico Fellini

Italy in the 1930s. In an ordinary seaside town, the locals are celebrating the end of winter and the arrival of spring. The rise of Mussolini’s fascist party is welcomed as a sign of rebirth and the townsfolk happily prostrate themselves before the image of Il Duce. Meanwhile teenager Titta Biondi discovers that he is beginning to experience strange, uncontrollable desires... [More...]

Fantasma d’amore (1981)

Dino Risi

Whilst travelling in a bus in his home town of Pavia, Nino Monti, a successful lawyer, encounters an old woman who bears a striking resemblance to Anna Brigatti, a woman he was once madly in love with. That evening, Nino meets the old woman a second time and she reveals that she is indeed Anna and that her love for him has not dwindled... [More...]

I tre volti della paura (1963)

Mario Bava

The Telephone:
Shortly after returning to her apartment one evening, Parisian call-girl Rosy begins to receive a series of threatening phone calls. She recognises the caller as Frank, the man she betrayed some time ago. It appears that Frank has just escaped from prison and intends to take his revenge by killing her... [More...]

Kill Baby, Kill (1966)

Mario Bava

Dr Eswai arrives in a remote Transylvanian village to perform an autopsy on a young woman who has recently died, apparently by impaling herself on railing spikes. He is met by Inspector Kruger, who reveals that several girls have died in a similar manner over the past few years. Eswai is surprised to find a coin in the heart of the dead woman and discovers it was placed there by Ruth, the village sorceress, to give her peace after death... [More...]

The Mask of Satan (1960)

Mario Bava

Moldavia, in the early 1600s. Princess Asa Vajda is sentenced to death, along with her lover Javuto, for consorting with the Devil. Metal masks lined with sharp spikes are hammered onto their faces, but before their bodies can be burnt a storm breaks and extinguishes the flames. Two centuries later, Dr Kruvajan and his young associate Dr Gorobec are on their way to a medical conference when their carriage breaks down... [More...]

Miracolo a Milano (1951)

Vittorio De Sica

One day, an old woman finds a baby boy in her cabbage patch and decides to adopt him, christening him Toto. When the old woman later dies, Toto enters an orphanage, where he stays until he is 18. On leaving the orphanage, Toto sets about trying to find work, without success. He is befriended by a homeless beggar who invites him to stay with him in his shack on a piece of wasteland inhabited by other displaced people... [More...]

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