Il club dei 27(2017)

Benvenuto Cellini(en)

With his affinity for the 16th-century sculptor Benvenuto Cellini's advocacy of artistic and personal freedom, Hector Berlioz went straight for the grand gesture with his first completed opera. Returning to it years after initial production debacles, Berlioz stated that he would 'never again find such verve and Cellinian impetuosity, nor such a variety of ideas.' The plot revolves around Cellini's wooing of Teresa, a match frustrated at every opportunity by his rival, the cowardly Fieramosca. Benvenuto Cellini is a pithy work combining romance, excitement, violence, comedy and spectacle; the perfect stage for Terry Gilliam's stylishly colorful and larger than life directing.

Grizzly Man(en)

Werner Herzog's documentary film about the "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in one man's attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain(en)

An intimate, behind-the-scenes look at how an anonymous chef became a world-renowned cultural icon. This unflinching look at Anthony Bourdain reverberates with his presence, in his own voice and in the way he indelibly impacted the world around him.

Parsifal - Teatro Massimo 2020(de)

Richard Wagner's Parsifal, staged at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo in 2020, opened the opera season on January 26. The production, directed by Graham Vick and conducted by Omer Meir Wellber, featured staging with references to the imagery of war.

Becoming Cary Grant(en)

For the first time one of Hollywood's greatest stars tells his own story, in his own words. From a childhood of poverty to global fame, Cary Grant, the ultimate self-made star, explores his own screen image and what it took to create it.

In the Eyes(it)

Documentary about the life and career of Vittorio Mezzogiorno through the voice of his daughter Giovanna.

The Metropolitan Opera: Norma(it)

Deep in a forest where druids and warriors seek revenge against the conquering Romans, Norma is scorned by the Roman proconsul Pollione, with whom she has two children. Her kindness turns to fury when she discovers that Pollione has taken Adalgisa, a novice priestess, as his new lover. When Pollione loses his high rank in the army and is offered as a sacrifice, Norma promises him freedom under one condition.

The Metropolitan Opera: The Exterminating Angel(en)

After the acclaimed Met premiere of Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" in 2012, the composer returned with another masterpiece, this time inspired by filmmaker Luis Buñuel's seminal surrealist classic "El Ángel Exterminador", during the 2017–18 season. As the opera opens, a group of elegant socialites gather for a lavish dinner party, but when it is time to leave for the night, no one is able to escape. Soon, their behavior becomes increasingly erratic and savage. The large ensemble cast tackles both the vocal and dramatic demands of Adès's opera with one riveting performance after another. Tom Cairns, who also penned the work's libretto, directs an engrossing and inventive production, using a towering wooden archway to trap the characters onstage. And Adès himself takes the podium to conduct the frenzied score, which features a host of unconventional instruments, including the eerie electronic ondes Martenot.

Simone Signoret, figure libre(fr)

Rough Rider(en)

Documentary following former professional cyclist and journalist Paul Kimmage as he discusses the blight of doping in cycling and the toll whistleblowing has taken on him personally.

Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable(en)

Freyer Artist. Iconoclast. Man of his time. All Things are Photographable is a revealing documentary portrait of the life and work of acclaimed photographer Garry Winogrand – the epic storyteller in pictures of America across three turbulent decades.

Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes(en)

The life and times of Muhammed Ali shown through the lens of his numerous appearances on The Dick Cavett Show. The film features new interviews with Dick Cavett, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Larry Merchant, as well as archival material from the Cavett Show.

Stalin's James Bond(de)

An account of the troubled life of Richard Sorge (1895-1944), a Soviet spy of German origin who played a decisive role in the outcome of World War II.

Wozzeck(de)

Franz Woyzeck, a lowly soldier stationed in a mid-nineteenth century provincial German town, is the father of an illegitimate child by his mistress Marie.

To New Shores(ru)

On a gloomy March 1881, an old, sick man was dying in the Nikolaevsky military land hospital in St. Petersburg. Delirium tremens had done its dirty work: there was no hope for recovery. And this “old man” had just turned 42 years old, and it was the great Russian composer Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky. Who knows what visions, what memories swarmed in his fevered imagination in rare moments of enlightenment?

Dante Ferretti: Production Designer(it)

The Documentary Dante Ferretti – Production Designer retraces the life and the career of Dante Ferretti, the famous Italian Artist and Production Designer.

Strauss: Elektra(en)

The great singing actress Nina Stemme gives a heart-wrenching performance in the title role of Strauss’s blazing one-act drama, adapted from the ancient Greek myth. Patrice Chéreau’s acclaimed production—the last staging he worked on before his death in 2013—also stars Waltraud Meier as Klytämnestra, Elektra’s nightmare-haunted mother, Adrianne Pieczonka as Chrysothemis, her sister, and Eric Owens as Orest, their brother, whose return home brings their family story to a terrifying climax. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the monumental and highly influential score.

Royal Opera House: The Magic Flute(de)

Prince Tamino promises the Queen of the Night that he will rescue her daughter Pamina from the enchanter Sarastro. He begins his quest, accompanied by the bird-catcher Papageno – but all is not as it seems… Tamino and Papageno discover Sarastro is a wise and kind leader. They undergo three ordeals. By the end they are united with their true loves: Tamino with Pamina, and Papageno with his Papagena.

Cool Water(en)

21-year-old Keith Blauschild, formally trained in the culinary arts, is also a self-taught ice carver. Together with his fiancee Angela Boone, Keith sculpts intricate but impermanent artworks for catered affairs, hotels, cruise ships and for advertising promotions. In this short documentary profile, Keith is filmed as he fashions a prototype (a sword-bearing warrior fighting a dragon) for an upcoming ice carving competition. At the contest site, the young man joins scores of other chainsaw-wielding sculptors busily freeing their creations from blocks of ice. Although Keith does not win a prize, his devotion to ice-carving remains intact. Moving from his home in New Jersey to a new life in Florida, Keith is featured as the "Person of the Week" on a Florida news broadcast

La Finta Giardiniera(it)

The Zurich Opera gathered a superb cast for this production: Italian soprano Eva Mei sings the Countess Violante, known as Sandrina, the feigned gardener of the title. Spanish soprano Isabel Rey is her opponent Arminda, and Arminda's former lover, the melancholy Cavaliere Ramiro, is sung by Romanian mezzo Liliana Nikiteanu. Moretti's staging presents the action in a modern villa in a hierarchical world of the rich and famous.