Strangeness(2022)

Brado(it)

On a ranch surrounded by nature, a man broken by life spends his days taming wild horses, the only creatures he could ever relate to. When he hears that his dad is embarking on yet another dangerous endeavor, his son Tommaso comes back home to try and dissuade him. It is a chance for them to bond again and to face the resentment that has long been keeping them apart. Day by day, father and son will learn to face each other to heal from their pain and walk together on the steep path to forgiveness.

The Bone Breakers(it)

Inside a warehouse in Palermo, a group of people smashes a man’s arm to pieces with a wheelie bag packed with weights. This is the method used by an amateur criminal organization that fractures the limbs of its willing victims before staging fake accidents and raking in the insurance payouts. Vincenzo recruits the individuals from among the down-and-outs that haunt the city streets, where Luisa is a habitué, since she gets her crack there. Vincenzo’s problems suddenly get worse, though, after a series of mistakes shut him out of the gang, and Luisa is now his only chance: he convinces her to have her bones broken.

Un mondo sotto social(it)

Stuck in a seaside town hoping to find the next big influencer, a marketer hatches a dubious plan to turn a mechanic into a social media sensation.

Tony Takitani(ja)

A reclusive illustrator falls in love with a young woman who addictively shops for clothing.

The Soul Keeper(it)

Zurich, 1905. Nineteen-year-old Russian Sabina Spielrein is put by her parents in a psychiatric hospital, suffering from a severe form of hysteria and refusing to eat. A compassionate doctor, Carl Gustav Jung, takes her under his care and, for the first time, experiments with the psychoanalytical method of his teacher Sigmund Freud. Thus is born a sweeping story of love and passion, of body and soul, soaring to the utmost heights, but also plunging to the darkest depths of the 20th century.

The Sicilian Girl(it)

Inspired to a true story, on November 5th 1991, Rita Atria a young 17-year-old Sicilian girl, goes to see an anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino to denounce the Mafia system that was responsible for the murder of her father and her brother. It is the first time that such a young woman from a Mafia family rebels and betrays the Mafia. From that moment on, Rita's days are numbered. She only has nine months to live...

Per una notte d'amore(it)

The Confessions(it)

A G8 meeting is being held at a luxury hotel on the German coast. The world's most powerful economists are gathered to enact important provisions that will deeply influence the world economy. One of the guests is a mysterious Italian monk, invited by Daniel Rochè, the director of the International Monetary Fund. He wants the monk to receive his confession, that night, in secret. The next morning, Rochè is found dead...

The Illusion(it)

1860. Giuseppe Garibaldi began from Quarto the adventure of the Thousand surrounded by the enthusiasm of the young idealists who had come from all regions of Italy, and with his loyal group of officers, among whom a new profile stands out, that of Palermo Colonel Vincenzo Giordano Orsini. Among the many militiamen recruited were two Sicilians, Domenico Tricò, a farmer who had emigrated to the North, and Rosario Spitale, an illusionist. Having landed in Sicily, at Marsala, the Thousand begin fighting with the Bourbon army, whose numerical preponderance is immediately evident. Under these conditions, it appears almost impossible for the general to breach the enemy defense and penetrate Palermo. But when he is almost forced to retreat, Garibaldi devises an ingenious plan.

Tramite amicizia(it)

Lorenzo works for a rent-a-friend company. One day, his services are required for suicidial businessman Alberto.

Youtopia(it)

To help her financially struggling mother, a teenage girl turns to escorting and meets a wealthy man who makes a proposal she can't refuse.

C’era una volta il crimine(it)

Stromboli(it)

After the end of WWII, a young Lithuanian woman and a young Italian man from Stromboli impulsively marry, but married life on the island is more demanding than she can accept.

Esterno Notte (part I)(it)

The 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists

The Hummingbird(it)

Everyone in Marco's life seems constantly restless, from his brilliant but unhappily married parents to his own wife Marina, or even Luisa, the real love of his life, a girl he met during a fateful summer in the '70s and always stayed in touch with. Tragedy and fate seem to haunt him, yet he somehow manages never to get ensnared in the chaos—like his namesake, “the hummingbird”, he focuses all his energy at standing still.

A Breath of Fresh Air(it)

Two proud and estranged brothers, a disputed inheritance and a past that comes back. When he hears about the passing of his father - whom he has not seen in many years - Salvo returns to his native Sicily. He intends to convince his brother Lillo to sell the family farm and save his pizzeria, which is about to go bankrupt - a secret that he has kept even from his wife and children. But things will not be easy and Salvo will have to come to terms with his choices. A bittersweet comedy about family relations and how one never stops growing up, not even at fifty.

Dante(it)

The tormented life of Dante Alighieri, from solitary childhood to death in exile, seen through Giovanni Boccaccio’s journey to rehabilitate his memory.

September(it)

Over the course of a day in September, three loosely related people realize their life is not the one they dreamt of.

La Fuitina Sbagliata(it)

The story of Romeo and Juliet is exactly the opposite: two families, the Casisa and the Vitrano, who adore each other, and their two children, Anna and Claudio, students away from home and longtime lovers, who hate each other and want nothing to do with each other. When they return home, the two find an idyllic situation: the friendship between their families is so strong that they've even joined forces in business. The Casisa, ricotta producers, and the Vitrano, producers of cannoli shells, will sell "the lovers' cannoli," for which Claudio and Anna will be the unwitting ambassadors. It's so difficult to tarnish that picture that the two not only lack the courage to admit they've broken up, but, gripped by an increasingly childish fear, they complicate matters by telling outright lies: not only do they announce their wedding, but also the imminent birth of a child. From here, a hilarious game of misunderstandings begins, which will lead them to commit the wrong elopement.

A Brighter Tomorrow(it)

An old film director, unhappy with the movie he's shooting about a Hungarian circus stranded in Rome during the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, faces divorce from his producer wife and other problems.

The Big Blue(fr)

Two men answer the call of the ocean in this romantic fantasy-adventure. Jacques and Enzo are a pair of friends who have been close since childhood, and who share a passion for the dangerous sport of free diving. Professional diver Jacques opted to follow in the footsteps of his father, who died at sea when Jacques was a boy; to the bewilderment of scientists, Jacques harbors a remarkable ability to adjust his heart rate and breathing pattern in the water, so that his vital signs more closely resemble that of dolphins than men. As Enzo persuades a reluctant Jacques to compete against him in a free diving contest -- determining who can dive deeper and longer without scuba gear -- Jacques meets Johana, a beautiful insurance investigator from America, and he finds that he must choose between his love for her and his love of the sea.

mondano(it)

Paisan(it)

During the Allied invasion of Italy in World War II, six stories unfold in various regions, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley. These tales follow the interactions between American soldiers and Italian civilians as they navigate their way through language barriers and cultural differences.

Léolo(fr)

The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.

The Best of Youth(it)

After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.

I Vicerè(it)

In late 19th-century Sicily, the noble Uzeda family—whose lineage dates back to the ancient viceroys that ruled those lands—fights to preserve its waning power in the face of the newly unified Italian regime.

Divorce Italian Style(it)

Ferdinando Cefalù is desperate to marry his cousin, Angela, but he is married to Rosalia and divorce is illegal in Italy. To get around the law, he tries to trick his wife into having an affair so he can catch her and murder her, as he knows he would be given a light sentence for killing an adulterous woman. He persuades a painter to lure his wife into an affair, but Rosalia proves to be more faithful than he expected.

Johnny Stecchino(it)

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.

Adventures of Casanova(en)

Casanova, a young patriot in 18th-century Sicily, upon learning that his father and sister have been murdered, returns to Palermo and engages in guerilla tactics against the forces of the Governor. Lady Bianca, the Governor's daughter, is in love with one of the patriots, Lorenzo, and desires to escape from the palace. Her lady-in-waiting, Zanetta, enlists the aid of Casanova and he rescues them and takes them to the partisan's camp. The rebels are victorious. Lady Bianca makes plans to marry Lorenzo, and Casanova and Zanetta have similar plans.

Operation Snafu(it)

World War II soldiers enter Sicily to seize German arms supply only to discover there is not a gun in sight.

Koza Nostra. Mom's Coming(uk)

Vlada Koza sells her house in the Carpathians and flies to sunny Sicily to live with her daughter and help take care of her grandson. But no one expected her mother to arrive. After a quarrel with her daughter, Vlada accidentally finds herself at the villa of the once powerful Italian mafioso Don Fredo, now a widower who is experiencing deep crises - personal, family and financial. Vlada gets a job as a cleaner, but becomes the salvation of this house.

Malena(it)

During WWII, a teenage boy discovering himself becomes love-stricken by Malèna, a sensual woman living in a small, narrow-minded Italian town.

Cinema Paradiso(it)

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.

Golden Door(it)

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

Moonstruck(en)

37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Johnny, even though she doesn't love him. When she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, an emotional and passionate man, she finds herself drawn to him. She tries to resist, but Ronny, who blames his brother for the loss of his hand, has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls for Ronny, she learns that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.

The Leopard(it)

As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.

Sicilian Ghost Story(it)

In a little Sicilian village at the edge of a forest, Giuseppe, a boy of 13, vanishes. Luna, his classmate who loves him, refuses to accept his mysterious disappearance. She rebels against the silence and complicity that surround her, and to find him she descends into the dark world which has swallowed him up and which has a lake as its mysterious entrance.

Operation Mincemeat(en)

In 1943, two British intelligence officers concoct Operation Mincemeat, wherein their plan to drop a corpse with false papers off the coast of Spain would fool Nazi spies into believing the Allied forces were planning to attack by way of Greece rather than Sicily.

Salvatore Giuliano(it)

Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano's bullet-riddled corpse is found facedown in a courtyard in Castelvetrano, a handgun and rifle by his side. Local and international press descend upon the scene, hoping to crack open the true story behind the death of this young man, who, at the age of twenty-seven, had already become Italy’s most wanted criminal and celebrated hero.

Rummaging for Pasts(en)

Rummaging for Pasts is an experimental juxtaposition of two cinematic documents: the video diary of an international archaeological excavation and a collection of assorted eight millimeter found footage of Indian weddings.