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Actress Monica Bellucci will be feted with the 2017 Virna Lisi award in Rome on Nov. 7 as part of the Fondazione per Roma's Cityfest series. 

The prize will be delivered by Lisi's son, Corrado Pesci, and presented by director Giuseppe Tornatore. 

Lisi was one of the rare Italian actresses who worked frequently across Italy and Hollywood. She gained fame in postwar Italian film, including starring in Casanova 70 opposite Marcello Mastroianni and later appearing with Jack Lemmon in How to Murder Your Wife and as Catherine de Medici in Queen Margot.

The Virna Lisi prize was started in 2015, first going to...

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Last year, I made a pitch to the Academy of Television Arts and Science on the subject of production design. Hopefully you also remember that amazing table tennis parlor from Penny Dreadful. But what you might not remember is that not a single one of the nominees I recommended actually won. Not even Lemonade, about which I am still annoyed.

But here I am, one year later, trying again. Here’s who should win each of the five production design Emmys. (At least Game of Thrones isn’t eligible this year, or they’d be winning for the fourth year in a row.)

Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary or Fantasy Program (One Hour or More)

The Young Pope is almost dizzyingly lush. It’s here as a “contemporary” program,...

Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero: Filmed mostly on the streets in newly-liberated territory, Roberto Rossellini’s gripping war-related shows are blessed with new restorations but still reflect their rough origins. The second picture, the greater masterpiece, looks as if it were improvised out of sheer artistic will.

Roberto Rosselini’s War Trilogy

Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 500 (497, 498, 499)

1945-1948 / B&W / 1:37 & 1:33 flat full frame / 302 minutes / Street Date July 11, 2017 / available from the Criterion Collection 79.96

Starring: Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani; Dots Johnson, Harriet White Medin; Edmund Moeschke, Franz-Otto Krüger.

Cinematography: Ubaldo Arata; Otello Martelli; Robert Julliard.

Film Editor: Eraldo Da Roma

Original Music: Renzo Rossellini

Written by Sergio Amidei, Alberto Consiglio, Federico Fellini; Klaus Mann, Marcello Pagliero, Alfred Hayes, Vasco Pratolini; Max Kolpé, Carlo Lizzani.

Directed by Roberto Rossellini

Criterion released an identical-for-content DVD set of this trilogy in 2010; the new Blu-ray...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani's The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears (2013) is showing February 4 - March 6 and Dario Argento's Deep Red (1975) is showing February 5 - March 7, 2017 in the United Kingdom in the double feature Giallo/Meta Giallo.“I know it when I see it.” Like film noir, the giallo is one of those genres as easy to pin down as it is difficult to define. More often than not, what constitutes a giallo rests on a given film’s balance of emblematic imagery and an archetypal storyline, while other factors like tone, score, and setting will also play a part in its classification. Arguably no filmmaker has had a more stylish and deftly rigorous hand in establishing these defining traits than Dario Argento. And his 1975 film, Deep Red (Profondo Rosso), is perhaps as good as it gets,...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Scorsese retrospective has a music-filled weekend with The Last Waltz, his George Harrison documentary, and more.

Anthology Film Archives

The late, great Leonard Cohen is paid tribute with a small retrospective that includes Fassbinder’s Beware of a Holy Whore and McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

Jean Vigo’s masterpiece L’Atalante has showings.

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metrograph

The restoration of Josef von Sternberg’s Anatahan, about which more here, is now playing. Fellini’s Roma also shows on Friday.

Hitchcock, Lucas, and more are highlighted in a ’70s Universal series.

The Land Before Time plays on Saturday.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Martin Scorsese retro continues with The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver.

When it comes to Federico Fellini's Roma, it's difficult to determine what's more self-indulgent, the act of appropriating by name a vital, ancient city that's been on the global forefront of politics, religion and culture, or this entire film in general. Of course, those with any familiarity whatsoever with Fellini's work understand that self-indulgence is the expected crux of all of his work. And why shouldn't it be? For a man who effectively re-crafted the art of commercial narrative filmmaking into personal art projects (no smuggling required), Fellini of all people had, by this point, earned such opportunities. Although lesser known and lesser discussed than his canonized masterpieces such as La Strada (1954) or 8 1/2 (1963), Roma (1972) is an indispensable late career surge...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

From, literally, the film’s opening title cards, Roma announces itself as something of a visual feast. A blood-red screen introduces us to the proceedings, with the four letters making up the Italian name for the nation’s capital of Rome fading in in all of their grand, pitch black glory. It’s a bombastic introduction to one of director Federico Fellini’s most esoteric and yet deeply personal motion pictures.

Also known in some circles as Fellini’s Roma, film critic Vincent Canby was right in suggesting that that specific title might be the real way we should look at this picture. While taking the title from the real capital city of Italy, this is not a Rome anyone recognizes at first glance. Seemingly a journey through the streets of a Rome from a universe just adjacent to ours, Fellini all but neglects anything truly resembling a coherent narrative,...

Qatar’s Doha Film Institute (Dfi) backs 32 projects in autumn funding round.

Moroccan filmmaker Narjiss Nejjar (Cry No More), Lebanon’s Bassem Breish and Palestinian director Suha Arraf (Villa Touma, pictured) are among the latest recipients of the Doha Film Institute’s grants programme aimed at first and second-time film-makers in the Middle East and Africa region.

The Qatari organization backed a total 32 projects from 27 countries in its autumn funding round.

Nejjar received support for upcoming film Stateless about a girl who will do anything to re-connect with her mother, including marry an aging, blind man.

Breish is working on The Maiden’s Pond, about two woman connected to the same man who need to find a way of living side by side in the same village.

Arraf, whose last film was Villa Touma, is currently working on The Poster, about a Palestinian village situated within Israeli borders which is stirred up when a controversial poster appears...

Federico Fellini’s best non-narrative feature is an intoxicating meta-travelogue, not just of the Eternal City but the director’s idea of Rome past and present. The masterful images alternate between nostalgic vulgarity and dreamy timelessness. Criterion’s disc is a new restoration.

Fellini’s Roma

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 848

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 120 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 13, 2016 / 39.95

Starring Peter Gonzales, Fiona Florence, Pia De Doses, Renato Giovannoli, Dennis Christopher, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Elliott Murphy, Anna Magnani, Gore Vidal, Federico Fellini.

Cinematography Giuseppe Rotunno

Film Editor Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music Nino Rota

Written by Federico Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi

Produced by Turi Vasile

Directed by Federico Fellini

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Federico Fellini stopped making standard narrative pictures after 1960’s La dolce vita; from then on his films skewed toward various forms of experimentation and expressions of his own state of mind. Most did have a story to some degree,...

“Roman Holiday?”

By Raymond Benson

One of the great director Federico Fellini’s more curious motion pictures is his 1972 part-documentary/part-fictional collage that consists of “impressions” of Rome, both past and present. In many ways, it is the middle chapter of a trilogy that comprises Fellini Satyricon (1969) and Amarcord (1973), although not many film historians view them as such.

Roma is a love letter, so to speak, to Italy’s capital city. The film takes place in three time periods—sometime during the 1930s, the war years, and the present (i.e., 1971-72, when the movie was made). It is also very much a product of its time, when the counter-culture movement was still in full swing. The modern sequences of Roma are populated by “hippies” and long-haired youth, as well as motorcyclists, intellectuals (Gore Vidal makes an appearance as himself), and Fellini as himself. The sequences cut back and forth...

Here at The A.V. Club, we recognize the realities of contemporary movie-watching, and so we try to keep you updated on what’s coming to and going from the major streaming services each month. But we also like to nerd out on deluxe Blu-ray editions of classic films. Therefore, welcome to the first of a series of monthly dispatches on what’s coming soon from The Criterion Collection. This fall’s slate of Criterion releases included some odd and exciting picks, like Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls and the Lone Wolf And Cub boxed set. But December’s picks, while still exciting, are more conventional (i.e., highbrow) Criterion fare.

First, there’s a Blu-ray edition of Frederico Fellini’s 1972 love letter to his home city, Roma. Currently out of print and available only on an expensive import Blu-ray, Roma blends documentary and Fellini’s signature flights ...

What do cinephiles dream about during the holiday season? According to the Criteiron Collection, it's all about classic films, such as John Huston's galvanic The Asphalt Jungle and Luis Buñuel's eye-raising comedy The Exterminating Angel. And contemporary titles, like Heart of a Dog, the first feature by Laurie Anderson in some 30 years. Plus, Fellini's Roma! Read on for all the details, provided by the fine folks at Criterion. The Exterminating Angel A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and inexplicably find themselves unable to leave in The Exterminating Angel (El ángel exterminador), a daring masterpiece from Luis Buñuel (Belle de jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie). Made just one year after his international sensationViridiana, this film, full of...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The Criterion Collection has announced its offerings for the last month of the year, with one contemporary title (“Heart of a Dog”) mixed in with the classic (“Roma,” “The Asphalt Jungle,” “The Exterminating Angel”) fare. Check out the covers for the new additions below, as well as synopses for each carefully chosen film.

Read More: Kieslowski, ‘Cat People,’ and the Coen Brothers Lead The Criterion Collection’s September Line-Up

“The Exterminating Angel”

A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and inexplicably find themselves unable to leave in “The Exterminating Angel” (“El ángel exterminador”), a daring masterpiece from Luis Buñuel (“Belle de jour,” “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”). Made just one year after his international sensation “Viridiana,” this film, full of eerie, comic absurdity, furthers Buñuel’s wicked takedown of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes.

“Heart of a Dog”

“Heart of a Dog...

While you likely already saved your money to buy The Criterion Collection‘s boxset for Krzysztof Kieslowski‘s masterpiece “Dekalog“ this month, the boutique label doesn’t make it easy to be a cinephile on a budget. And their December lineup certainly looks poised to break a few wallets (while randomly revealing one title for February).

Kicking things off is Federico Fellini‘s “Roma,” with the master filmmaker’s 1972 movie newly-restored, to provide an even more breathtaking look at his love letter to the city.

Continue reading Federico Fellini’s ‘Roma,’ John Huston’s ‘Asphalt Jungle’ & More Coming To Criterion In December at The Playlist.

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metrograph

Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant‘s collaborations are highlighted in a series that brings Notorious, Suspicion, and To Catch a Thief on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, respectively.

Prints of Max Ophüls‘ Letter from an Unknown Woman and Alan Arkin‘s Little Murders play on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

A print of James and the Giant Peach...

The Roma Lazio Film Commission colour correction and sound mixing 5.1 award has gone to Veronica (Mexico) by Carlos Algara and Alejandro Martinez Beltrán under the auspices of Ventana Sur’s genre sidebar.

The Sofía Films colour correction and visual effects supervising award was presented at the awards ceremony in Buenos Aires last week to Laura Casabé for La Valija De Benavidez (Argentina), which began life as a pitch at the market three years ago.

The same film earned the Morbido Film Festival award for opening credits design and pay-tv distribution for a second and third window for Latin America.

The Morbido Film Festival’s poster design for a film award went to Federico and Sebastián Rotstein’s Terror 5 (Argentina).

Terror 5 also collected the Full Dimensional post-production and 2D-to-3D conversion package for a teaser, sound mixing 7.1, sound effects, foley and visual effects supervision.

The Labo Digital award for a Thx-certified sound mixing 5.1 package went to...

By the late 1960s, Federico Fellini had more or less permanently transitioned from filmmaker to icon. The autobiographical 8½ basically ensured his films would be permanently inseparable from himself, the sort of commercial accomplishment of which most film directors can only dream. Most directors are fortunate to be recognized for putting their “touch” into an accepted format. Fellini was the format. His follow-up, Juliet of the Spirits, is an equally indulgent affair that serves loosely as an apology to his wife (Giulietta Masina, who also stars in the film), on whom he cheated for more or less the entirety of their marriage; the resulting film is as much his fantasy (sexual extravagance) as hers (Masina had a keen interest in the psychic realm). And so the template is set – Fellini would continue to make films about himself, but largely under the guise of someone else’s perspective.

He wasn’t shy...

It's truly the emancipation of Mimi! Singing sensation Mariah Carey was photographed this past weekend vacationing on the luxurious island of Capri, Italy, with her new romantic interest, billionaire James Packer. The mother of twins was snapped clutching hands with Packer, the fourth richest man in Australia, outside of the Pasticceria Da Alberto on the Via Roma, this past Friday, June 19. Other vacation snaps featured the pair alone on a speedboat, enjoying the crystal clear waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. For the oceanic jaunt on Monday, June [...]...

‘Rome, Open City’ movie returns: 4K digital restoration of Roberto Rossellini masterpiece at London’s BFI Southbank (photo: Anna Magnani in ‘Rome, Open City’) A restored digital print of Roberto Rossellini’s best-known film, Rome, Open City / Roma, città aperta is currently enjoying an extended run — until April 5, 2014 — at London’s BFI Southbank. Inspired by real-life events and made right after the liberation of Rome, Rome, Open City stars Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani, Marcello Pagliero, and Maria Michi. Though not a local box office hit at the time of its release, Rome, Open City, shot with a minuscule budget in the ravaged streets of Rome, became one of the most influential movies ever made. Its raw look, "documentary" feel, and scenes shot on location (though studio sets were used as well) inspired not only other Italian directors of the post-war years, but filmmakers everywhere, including those in Hollywood (e.g.

★★★★☆A landmark work in the lexicon of 1970s art film, Federico Fellini's highly venerated opus Roma (1972) arrives in a pristine restoration as part of Eureka's Masters of Cinema series, giving it the Blu-ray treatment it deserves. Coming after perhaps his most notable works La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8 ½ (1963), and ushering him into the highly impressionistic - and prolific - fugue of seventies Italian cinema, Roma is, like Fellini's Satyricon (1969) before it, a work of meticulously non-specific memory-cinema and a semi-autobiographical perusal through a Rome in a state of continuous flux.

The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza), Italy’s Submission for the Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film

Inspirational and awe-inspiring are the words that come to mind first when I think about the great movie just out of Italy, The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) from acclaimed director Paolo Sorrentino ( Il Divo, The Consequences of Love, This Must be the Place) with a screenplay by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello.

I could watch this film over and over again and still be inspired by the beauty of Rome and the depth of its flaneur, the hero of this film, journalist Jep Gambardella as played by the incomparable Toni Servillo (Gomorrah, Il Divo). In fact, after interviewing Paolo Sorrentino recently at the Chateau Marmont, I feel compelled to watch it again in order to understand the ending’s reference to what might have been the subject of the original and only book Jeb ever wrote which was perhaps (according to Paolo) “about the love he had for the girl -- and you can see that at the end of the movie”.

During my interview, I tried not to discuss how the film carries echoes of the classic works of Federico Fellini as Sorrentino had already gone on record stating that, “Roma and La Dolce Vita are works that you cannot pretend to ignore when you take on a film like the one I wanted to make. They are two masterpieces and the golden rule is that masterpieces should be watched but not imitated. I tried to stick to that. But it’s also true that masterpieces transform the way we feel and perceive things.”

A dazzling tour through modern day Rome through the eyes of Jep Gambardella gives us feelings for grandeur whose beauty can lead to death, to dangerous adventures leading nowhere and to a certain level of sadness. 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.

The stripper daughter of his old friend and nightclub owner represents a simpler normality as does his housekeeper. Both are touchstones to a reality he has abandoned since becoming a permanent fixture in Rome’s literary and social circles after the legendary success of his one and only novel. Armed with a roguish charm, he has seduced his way through the city's lavish night life for decades.

As an interviewer for popular press, his curiosity about everything is satisfied and dissatisfied at the same time. He finds his yearning for simplicity is sparked when he rather cynically interviews a saintly nun and more importantly, he finds the seed for his next book in the simple, normal lives of ordinary people and in the fragility of those snobbish, superficial, gossiping “friends” with whom he has spent too much time weaving a uselessly complicated life of nothingness, living in a world which makes no sense.

There are many literary references in the film – Flaubert who wanted to write a book about nothing, Proust whose masterpiece “capitalizes on his own biography”, Celine whose opening line to his novel Journey to the End of the Night is also the film’s opening line.

This quote from Celine is a declaration of intent that I followed in turn in the film. It comes down to saying: there’s reality, but everything is invented too. Invention is necessary in cinema, just to attain the truth.

What is it about the Flaubert references?

Flaubert said he wanted to write a book about nothing. This gave him the right to write about the frivolous, gossip, nothing and it acquired a literary standing. Nothingness becomes life. It takes on a life of its own and life’s nothingness is its beauty.

Jeb is living it among awkward, weak people, even hateful people. This is life and all of it belongs to The Great Beauty. The immediacy of the beauty of Rome is obvious, but the subterranean part – like these horrible people around him, you realize they are are also so vulnerable and fragile and that gives them and him the redeeming grace of beauty. The communist writer is emblematic.

Are you an intellectual?

I don’t like to think that I am. I do read a lot. I read more than I watch movies.

What do you do in your free time?

I hibernate. I hibernate until the next project takes shape in my mind. I watch a lot of football. And I tend to my family. I have two children aged 10 and 16 who keep me very busy.

Do you find that the Italian character is theatrical?

In my hometown (Naples), the people are extraordinarily theatrical. Orson Welles himself, on seeing Neapolitan actor Eduardo de Felipo said that he was the greatest actor in the world.

Whatever you say about it, Italy has an extraordinary pool of actors of every sort. They are all very different, from many different backgrounds, but all with often under-exploited potential, all just waiting to find good characters.

Tony Servillo is also from Naples, like I am. He is an actor I can ask anything of, because he is capable of doing absolutely everything. I can now move forward with him with my eyes closed, not only as far as work goes, but also in terms of our friendship, a friendship which over time becomes more joyful, lighter yet deeper at the same time.

Tony Servillo is quoted as saying about Sorrentino:

We have something in common which we both cultivate, and that’s a taste for mystery. That has something to do with esteem, with a sense of irony and self-mockery, with certain similar sources of melancholy, and certain subjects or themes of reflection. These affinities are renewed each time we meet, as if it were the first time, without there being any need for a closer relationship between one film and the next. We meet and it’s as if we’ve never been apart. And that means there’s a deep friendship between us, and that’s what so great.

Thank you Paolo for this interview. I wish you all the luck in winning not only the Nomination but also the prize of the Academy Award.

I also want to draw the reader’s attention to the fabulous photography of cinematographer Luca Bigazzi and the music of Lele Marchitel, who juxtaposes original music with repertory music of sacred and profane, pop music reflecting the city itself and to the extraordinary pool of actors, Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso, Iaia Forte, Pamela Villoresi and Galatea Ranzi, Massimo de Francovich, Roberto Herlitzka and Isabella Ferrari.

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times called this visually spectacular film “an outlandishly entertaining hallucination”, and according to Variety’s Jay Weissberg it’s an “astonishing cinematic feast”.

This rapturous highlight of this year's Cannes Film Festival, where it played in Competition was acquired for U.S. by Janus Films who will release it theatrically in N.Y. on November 15, L.A. on November 22, expanding to other cities on November 29, with a home video release from the Criterion Collection.

“We were swept away by this gorgeous, moving film at Cannes”, said Peter Becker, president of the Criterion Collection and a partner in Janus Films. “Sorrentino is one of the most exciting directors working today, and Toni Servillo gives another majestic, multilayered performance.”

The deal to distribute Sorrentino’s film in the U.S. was struck with international distributor Pathé. “Janus has over the years become a valued partner in the promotion of Pathé’s heritage in the U.S. through its releases of our library titles, and we are, of course, thrilled to once again partner up with this company for the release of this film which represents the finest of Italian cinema today and at the same time pays a respectful homage to its nation’s cinematic past”, said Muriel Sauzay, Evp, International Sales.

For more information on the film visit Here

La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) also screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and was recently award the European Film Academy award for its editing by Cristiano Travaglioli. Since its Cannes debut, it has sold to Australia - Palace Films , Austria - Filmladen , Benelux - Abc - Cinemien , Brazil - Mares Filmes Ltda. , Canada - Mongrel Media, Métropole Films Distribution , Czech Republic - Film Europe, Denmark - Camera Film A/S , Estonia -Must Käsi, France - Canal + , Germany - Dcm , Greece - Feelgood Entertainment, Hong Kong (China) - Edko Films Ltd , Israel - United King Films, Italy - Medusa Distribuzione, Norway - As Fidalgo Film Distribution , Portugal - Lusomundo, Russia - A-One Films , Slovak Republic - Film Europe (Sk) , Switzerland - Pathe Films Ag , United Kingdom - Curzon Film World...

The Oscars speech of the night goes to newcomer Lupita Nyong’o, who won best supporting actress for her role as Patsey in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave.

Transcripts of all Academy Awards winners’ onstage speeches…

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave

Yes! Thank you to the Academy for this incredible recognition. It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s. And so I want to salute the spirit of Patsey for her guidance. And for Solomon, thank you for telling her story and your own. Steve McQueen, you charge everything you fashion with a breath of your own spirit. Thank you so much for putting me in this position. This has been the joy of my life. I’m certain that the dead are standing about you and watching and they...

Alone Yet Not Alone has some company.

The obscure religious drama, which had its Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song revoked over allegations of improper campaigning, is one of the few films in history to suffer such a fate.

In one case, the film actually won the Oscar — and the victory was overturned after the fact and awarded to the runner-up. And in another — the earliest in the organization history — no one is sure why the film was rejected from consideration.

Updated: While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences disputes that some crediting and nominating issues of...

By Terence Johnson

Managing Editor

The Oscar race is never a dull one and that couldn’t be any more apparent than in the race for Best Foreign Language film. This year is certainly shaping up to be a battle of David vs. Goliath if you looked at the histories of the countries competing. In one corner, you have Italy, with a whopping 12 wins in this category, facing off with a country like Cambodia, with no Oscar nominations. But such is the beauty of the awards season and the Oscars. So before the nominations come out, here’s an Oscar primer to get you caught up on the Foreign Language films.

Belgium – 2013 Nominee: The Broken Circle Breakdown

Logline/Synopsis: Elise and Didier fall in love at first sight, in spite of their differences. He talks, she listens. He’s a romantic atheist, she’s a religious realist. When their daughter becomes seriously ill,...

A couple of months ago I featured some exquisite silkscreened King Kong prints designed by the British design studio La Boca. I’ve been following La Boca’s work for the past few years and so I thought a great way to end the year would be to ask the founder of La Boca, Scot Bendall, to talk about some of their influences by sharing with us his ten favorite movie posters of all time.

Scot chose ten posters that have meaning for them as designers. “I think there have been better, and more successful, poster designs for sure—I mean, there isn’t one Saul Bass here for example!—but, the only way I could wrangle down to ten was by selecting posters that have had some personal resonance to our work. I’m also a (very amateur) Czech/Polish poster collector, so they feature quite prominently.”

Here are...

It is always an exciting day when Eureka Entertainment announces their upcoming titles for its Masters of Cinema series, and with today's announcement, they might have just outdone themselves. Sidney Lumet's seminal police thriller, Serpico, starring a top-of-his-game Al Pacino leads the pack, followed by William A. Wellman's silent classic Wings, Ted Kotcheff's brilliantly bizarre Australian outback nightmare, Wake In Fright and Sam Fuller's racially charged White Dog. We will also see Andrew Bujalski's delightfully eccentric Computer Chess released on the label, as well as Francesco Rosi's Hands Over The City, which arrives alongside Federico Fellini's love letter to his home city, Roma. As a little cherry on the top of their already gloriously glazed announcement, Eureka annouced that they will be releasing Robert Altman's ensemble epic,...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Italy leads the world of cinema in mourning a man whose films were a blend of reality, wit, fantasy and brazen self-indulgence

The renowned film director Federico Fellini died at midday yesterday, ending a 90-day struggle for health and later for life, and closing an era in both 20th century Italian culture and world cinema.

On the day after his 50th wedding anniversary, Fellini's heart finally gave way under the stress of a haemorrhage which had crippled his left side.

He died, aged 73, in the Umberto I Polyclinic hospital in Rome, although he first fell ill in his home town of Rimini on August 3. Fellini insisted on leaving the Rome hospital as late as October 17 for the evening to take his wife, Giulietta Masina, to dinner. He went into the coma soon afterwards.'Fifty years ago,' said Ms Masina, 'I realised that this was a man for me.

Just how whispers about a film’s quality sweep the Croisette before anyone’s seen a frame is one of the festival’s mysteries, but word on the boulevard yesterday was that Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) is a masterpiece. It’s not, but it is one of the competition’s strongest showings so far, its large canvas, heavyweight themes and stylistic verve inviting Palme d’Or chatter. Consciously evoking Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Roma in location and ideas, The Great Beauty swoops and soars about the capital in a...

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Italian composer of film scores and musicals

Armando Trovajoli, who has died aged 95, was a prolific composer for Italian films and stage musicals. He worked with many of Italy's leading directors, including Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Ettore Scola and Vittorio De Sica, for whom he composed music for La Ciociara (Two Women, 1960) and Matrimonio all'Italiana (Marriage Italian Style, 1964), both of which starred Sophia Loren, who became a friend. When Loren was going to Hollywood for the first time in the mid-1950s, Trovajoli composed and recorded with his orchestra a song in Neapolitan for her, Che M'è Mparato a Ffà (What Did You Teach Me to Do?), which did much to launch her in the Us.

Trovajoli was born into an upper-middle-class family in Rome. He learned to play the violin as a boy and, in the 1930s, studied piano at the Santa Cecilia conservatory. By 1939 he was playing with a leading jazz band.

Liverpool midfielder Alberto Aquilani has completed his move to Italian side Fiorentina for an undisclosed fee.

The Italian, who recently made a plea to new manager Brendan Rodgers to give him a chance at Anfield, flew to Italy upon the commencement of the club’s North American pre-season tour.

On Friday morning Fiorentina’s honorary president Andrea Della Vale hinted a deal with Aquilani was close, while sources said that Rodgers had told Aquilani he was not part of his plans at Liverpool.

Aquilani joined Liverpool in 2009 from Roma but only managed 9 premier league starts for the reds, making 28 appearances overall.

He struggled with injury throughout his first season at the club and has spent the last two seasons on loan at Juventus and AC Milan, where his wages, reportedly up to 5m a year, were a drain on Liverpool’s funds.

The midfielder only managed 2 goals for Liverpool, one...

The American writer had several movie mishaps in Europe, but he toasted his collaboration with Fellini

Gore Vidal's memoir Palimpsest was written mostly in Ravello around 1994. It hasn't much to say about about Gore's life in Rome, where he and Howard Austen had moved into a penthouse apartment 30 years earlier, except for the observation: "I had never had a proper human-scale village life anywhere on earth until I settled into that old Roman street." Rather than the dolce vita crowd, Gore liked to mix with the "villagers". Among the Italians he enjoyed meeting was Italo Calvino, whom he admired greatly.

When Kenneth Tynan came to Rome, Gore enlisted me to help him and Howard prepare a guest list for a party in his honour. Among the many Italian celebrities who showed up was Federico Fellini, whom Gore had met when they were both working at Cinecittà studios – Gore on...

From Ben-Hur and Caligula to Bob Roberts and The Us vs John Lennon, celebrated author Gore Vidal, who died yesterday, also took the Hollywood shilling as a screenwriter

Suddenly, Last Summer

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Gore Vidal followed in the footsteps of William Faulkner and F Scott Fitzgerald when he took the Hollywood shilling and signed on as a screenwriter for MGM. He scored an early success with his pungent adaptation of Tennessee Williams's Suddenly, Last Summer, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift. Williams, though, took all the credit.

Ben-Hur

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Just how much involvement did Vidal have in Ben-Hur, William Wyler's Oscar-winning chariot opera from 1959? The writer served as a script doctor and later claimed to have introduced a simmering gay subtext to the rivalry between Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and Messala (Stephen Boyd...

Gore Vidal, a literary powerhouse, essayist, screenwriter and political activist, has died. Vidal passed away today at his home from complications of pneumonia, his nephew tells the Los Angeles Times. Vidal wrote 25 novels, including the groundbreaking The City and the Pillar,among the first novels about openly gay characters, and the Tony-nominated play The Best Man, revived on Broadway in 2012. His hundreds of satires included Myra Breckinridge and Duluth. His pieces on politics, religion, sexuality and literature drew praise as well as criticism. He won a National Book Award in 1993 for his United States Essays, 1952-1992. Woven throughout his works were anecdotes from his famous friends, including Hollywood stars Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and Kennedy family. His screenplay credits include Suddenly Last Summer, Ben Hur, and Billy The Kidd. He also played himself in Fellini’s Roma, and a Us senator in Bob Roberts. He made two unsuccessful political runs,...

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

With a filmography boasting some of the most important and entertaining films of the last forty years, from Mean Streets and Taxi Driver to The Departed and Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese could be forgiven for resting on his laurels or at least taking a nice relaxing holiday. Yet this doesn’t seem to be in his make-up. A dedicated cinephile and music lover, the director has been an equally prolific documentarian over the years and the results are rarely less than spellbinding, with his chosen subject matter always deeply personal.

A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995) and My Voyage to Italy (1999) – which is released on DVD tomorrow – are among the best of these movies, with Marty himself narrating – passionately sharing his thoughts on the films which have inspired him in an accessible, unpretentious style. Aided by his own touching reminiscences as well as...

After three separate announcements (here, here and here), the Toronto International Film Festival has announced the final line-up for their Galas and Special Presentations, as well as a few other categories. Most notable is Andrea Arnold‘s Fish Tank follow-up Wuthering Heights, the next film from Timecrimes director Nacho Vigalondo, as well as Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos’ Alps.

We also get Whit Stillman‘s Damsels in Distress starring Greta Gerwig and Geoffrey Fletcher’s Violet & Daisy starring Saoirse Ronan and James Gandolfini. In what should be a little fun we have Gary McKendry‘s Killer Elite starring Robert De Niro, Clive Owen and Jason Statham. We also get Owen’s horror flick Intruders and Joel Schumacher‘s Trespass starring Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage. Check out the full line-ups below.

Galas

Closing Night Film

Page Eight David Hare, United Kingdom

International Premiere

Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) is a long-serving M15 officer.

John Hooper selects 10 of his favourite Rome-based films from Hepburn in Roman Holiday to Fellini's La Dolce Vita

• As featured in our Rome city guide

Roman Holiday, William Wyler, 1953

Insulated from the commotion of Roman life, Via Margutta is a cobbled street near the Spanish Steps, draped in ivy and lined nowadays with art galleries, restaurants and boutiques. It was home to Federico Fellini and Truman Capote. And at number 51, Crown Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) began her fleeting love affair with an American foreign correspondent, Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) in the enchanting, if improbable, comedy that shot Hepburn to fame and forever welded Vespas to Rome in the popular imagination. "You have my permission to withdraw..." slurs Hepburn, unaware she has previously been sedated, as she lets her skirt slip to the floor. "Why, thank you very much," replies the gentlemanly Peck and leaves her to sleep alone. It...

This year’s Cannes competition line-up includes four films directed by women among the 20 entries. Woo-hoo, that’s 400 percent better than last year’s ratio!

Voilà, that’s the thing I love. On the other hand, I didn’t love the third distaff entry (after Sleeping Beauty by Julia Leigh and We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lynne Ramsay). Polisse (in French) or Poliss (in English) is, either way you spell it, the awkward title, based on a child’s misspelling, of a new, sub-par spin-off of Law & Order: Child Protection Unit. At least, it could be. The poliss...

In the early 1970s, cinema stylist Federico Fellini released an interesting pseudo-documentary called "Fellini's Roma", in which he explored the decadent effects of modern man on the great ancient city of Rome. During one particularly inspired self-contained sequence, we follow an underground demolition crew as they work to expand the subway network. They are demolishing the "city beneath the city" - the ruins of centuries old Rome - and at one point, they break open a sealed chamber; its walls lined with beautiful, perfectly preserved frescoes. The crew stands in awe of their amazing discovery for only a minute, until the influx of outside air - the air of the modern city and it's "progress" - swoops in and disintegrates the frescoes upon contact....

Rome -- Actress Julianne Moore will be the main guest at the International Rome Film Festival, which also announced it would honor Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" on the 50th anniversary of its release.

 

Along with Moore, the festival announced that Keira Knightley, Eva Mendes and Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Kahn would be among those gracing the red carpet for the festival's fifth edition, which will run Oct. 28-Nov. 5.

 

Among the hot titles are Massy Tadjedin's "Last Night" -- starring Knightley and Mendes -- Jim Loache's "Oranges and Sunshine," "Rabbit Hole" from John Cameron Mitchell and Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right," which stars Moore as part of a lesbian couple raising two children.

 

In addition to the out-of-competition screening of "The Kids Are All Right," Moore will co-host a master class and will receive the Marcus Aurelius Award for lifetime achievement.

 

Alian Corneau's "Crime d'amore" will screen out of competition,...

Now that the 2010 line-up for the Criterion Collection has finally been announced with last week’s December titles, we can begin speculating on what we’ll get in 2011. With over 50 spine numbers in 2010, will we see # 600 in 2011? At the rate that Criterion is churning out these discs, we have to assume so. Where will they get all of these upcoming titles from?

Well, over the past few months we’ve seen several titles from MGM’s catalog announced, and hinted at in their monthly newsletter. Most likely due to MGM’s current financial problems, it’s nice to see Criterion stepping up to rescue these films from the abyss of “out of print”. If you head over to the various forums (CriterionForum.org, Mubi, etc.) you’ll find many people speculating on the MGM titles that Criterion has acquired the rights to. While some are mostly speculation, I have had...

Working on a podcast called the Criterion Cast, several directors will be consistently reference because of their multiple entries within the Criterion Collection, and deserve every ounce of recognition. One of these filmmakers, without question, is Federico Fellini. Just recently covering his wonderful film Amarcord and in the past few weeks with news of La Dolce Vita maybe not having actual owners and a new print on the way for it’s 50th anniversary, it was only a matter of time before something else came along.

Which is why it’s wonderful to see that some of his greatest works are going to be shown on the big screen once again at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on June 16th to the 27th. The films being shown are I vitelloni, 8 ½, La strada, Nights of Cabiria, Amarcord, and Juliet of the Spirits in all new 35mm prints.

We here...

Among the movies available during the long hours of my flight from London to Sydney was Rob Marshall's Nine, a reworking of Fellini's 8½. As I flicked back and forth through the menu, I caught glimpses of Penélope Cruz in a flounced red baby-doll nightie with a built-in push-up bra – could we have worn such things in the 1960s? – and Sophia Loren looking like an Aztec mask, and Daniel Day-Lewis getting in and out of bed with his trousers on, but I was not tempted. I will not have my Fellini rewritten by Arthur Kopit, who wrote the musical, or Anthony Minghella or Michael Tolkin, who wrote the screenplay.

In the summer of 1975, Paola Roli, one of the casting directors for Fellini's Casanova, suggested that he try me for the part of the giantess. I was a fan from way back, so, though I didn't want the part, and...

Is maddening. I am a sucker for movies about the creative process. I thought Tristam Shandy, A Cock and Bull Story was one of the best movies of the recently concluded first decade of the MMs. Nine tries to take us into the genius of Frederico Fellini. It fails of course, but in failing gets full marks for trying. But, a lot of fun. Who can dislike a movie that allows you to dream of tooling around Roma with a beautiful woman by your side in a 1960s Alfa Romeo convertible? Wearing, of course, a perfectly fitted Armani black suit and thin black tie, cigarette dangling from a world-weary lip, unkempt with a two-day beard, keeping the RPMs up as you speed shift around fountains and down narrow streets? Curious how convertible sports cars were designed then...all looks and style, no...

Remember when those fuzz guitars screamed and those thick basses throbbed over images of Olga Karlatos's eyeball popping at the tip of a wooden splinter in Lucio Fulci's classic 1979 gut muncher Zombie (aka Zombi 2)?

Perhaps you recall the mind phasing amalgam of thudding drums pounding over doom soaked synths during the lunch losing, gut barfing and brain drillings in Fulci's City Of The Living Dead (aka The Gates Of Hell).

Or maybe you remember darker than pitch choir, piano and bass orchestrations that gave Fulci's immortal head spinning magnum opus The Beyond (aka L'aldila) such shuddery visceral resonance.

I could go on, and I will go on….

Those incredible, progressive and experimental rock sounds were sculpted by none other than Maestro Fabio Frizzi. Born in Bologna, Italy in 1951, Frizzi was a life long lover of music and a child prodigy who rose to fame with legendary Italian composer collective Bixio – Frizzi – Tempera,...