Self (archive footage)
Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.
Herself - Actress (archive footage)
The story of Italian cinema under Fascism, a sophisticated film industry built around the founding of the Cinecittà studios and the successful birth of a domestic star system, populated by very peculiar artists among whom stood out several beautiful, magnetic, special actresses; a dark story of war, drugs, sex, censorship and tragedy.
Doña Catalina
The most spectacular Easter celebration in the World. Hosts of hooded Penitents parade through the ancient, narrow streets of the Old Town in time-honored ritual. But for one celebrant this Holy Week is different. For him Semana Santa is a time to kill. As the death toll mounts, it falls to detective Maria Delgado - mistrusted outsider from Madrid - to stop the bizarre killings.
Self (archive footage)
Documentary about the shooting of 'Suspiria' that details everything that lovers of horror genre can desire, including the inspiration of the plot, the director, the cast, the style, the music and, of course, its worldwide success. Argento, Daria Nicolodi, Jessica Harper, Udo Kier, Stafania Casini, Giuseppe Colombo, Luciano Tovoli and several members of the progressive rock band Goblin (Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli, Massino Marante) are interviewed to learn about their work in the film.
Herself
Sveva Salvini
Half-Italian Gioia loves Max, but leaves her son's son to cheat her as a fiancé. When Mama invites the family to the Italian winery for Grandpa's 80th birthday, the feelings are on the table alongside pasta, pesto and vino, because Gioia happens to meet Max again ...
Nonna di Sofia
Countess Alessandra Mirafiori
Alex Ritt, a music video director comes to Italy to direct a video for pop sensation Stefania Stella. He soon encounters a mysterious killer who videotapes his victims for the police. As the horrible murders continue, Ritt is unknowingly pushed into the killer's games and he soon becomes a target of the police. The video-killer is on the loose and Ritt must find out the truth before it's too late.
Signora Fascioli
For 16 years Miss Bentley has been spending April at an elegant hillside villa on Lake Como. This year, 1937, her London society artist father has recently died and the only other English-speaking guests are brash Americans. Then Major Wilshaw arrives. He suggests they meet for cocktails and Miss Bentley stands him up -- not even thinking about it -- as she helps the new nanny of an Italian family settle in. Miss Beaumont, a tall, young American who has dropped out of finishing school in Switzerland, is bored and finds some amusement in flirting with the major, whose libido is awakened for the first time since before the great war. And Miss Bentley now finds more about the major to admire than his ears.
Carla's Mother
Marco is a judge investigating a case of arms trafficking, one of the judges to fight against corruption of Italian political life. Carla, his wife, lives dominated by the fear that her husband will be murdered and, unfortunately, her fears are realized. She decides to join a group of widows of judges to break the silence that has always protected the crimes of the Mafia, who always act in collusion with influential public figures. With the help of the group and the notes and documents of her husband, Carla produces a television documentary that endangers the lives of many people.
Matilde Pierboni
This Italian TV mini-series (4 episodes) is directed by giallo great Sergio Martino and stars some of the most recognizable stars of Italian genre cinema, including Edwige Fenech, Ray Lovelock, and Alida Valli. Story: Sandra Venturi, studying to be a singer at the conservatory of music in the Italian town of Lucca, has a promising career in opera ahead of her. On the eve of her nineteenth birthday, during a thunderstorm, the young singer leaves the apartment she shares with her mother Nicole Venturi, a journalist. Sandra is on her way to a secret rendezvous with a married man. He is murdered shortly before Sandra arrives at the deserted villa outside the town which they had chosen as their meeting point. When Marco's corpse is discovered the next morning, Nicole senses that reporting this case will make her famous outside her local region. What she doesn't know is that her daughter is also missing ...
Caterina, Andrea's mother
Marco, a television journalist, reads "red lies" on his teletext system in order to gather material on the homosexual world for a story he's working on. Unfortunately, he is implicated in a series of murders in which the victims are all gay. Marco becomes a suspect and is forced to investigate the crimes himself in order to prove his innocence.
Clara
In a small Tuscan village that's waiting for the local festival to commence, amidst confusion about the fall of Communism, the lives of some dazed characters intertwine.
Countess Bianca Rospigliosi
A young restorer is commissioned a job at an old villa which belongs to an aging countess.
Catarina
When her husband Alexander dies, Hermione, a squire, discovers that he was a bigamist on the one hand and a swindler on the other. In the company of Alexander's second wife, she sets out to find the loot hidden in his vast estate.
Bacha
The survivor of a concentration camp finds out that her lover, a lesbian, is having an affair with a protegee.
Gina
Madre di Marina
Paolo Coniglio is a naive and clumsy employee in a comics publishing house, bullied by his manager and his terrible future mother-in-law. To escape his dreary daily routine, he finds himself living vivid daydreams with "Dalia", the beautiful heroine of the books that he's translating. One day, though, while shopping, Paolo meets a charming blonde that looks like Dalia, and finds himself trapped in a shady intrigue.
Juliana Barther
A publisher seeks information on a writer who died long ago.
Bettina
Who is the mysterious stranger Cecilia met on the street? Why is he suspicious of everyone? She is happily married, has a lovely child and a good job: yet she decides to join him and to become his lover, sharing his destiny right up to its tragic conclusion.
A Yugoslavian man meets a woman in Paris, where he has come to do some research, and their mutual attraction leads to a liaison and shared adventures, not many good.
Isabel
A young girl's husband rents a lovely home just outside of Madrid so she can spend the last three months of her pregnancy in peace and luxury. Unfortunately, just as they arrive at the home, the girl realizes that it is the place where she had secretly had an illegal abortion some years before. The clinic is long-gone, but this doesn't ease the woman's disquiet. Things get even worse when she learns that her upstairs neighbor is the old abortionist's assistant.
Lady Camilla Tressilian
Marianne
Carol
A young man returns from Rome to his sister's satanic New York apartment house.
Giuseppe's Mother
While touring in Italy, a recently-widowed American opera singer has an incestuous relationship with her 15-year-old son to help him overcome his heroin addiction.
Yvonne, la mère
Eva is a singer in a Noah's Ark themed nightclub, where the guests wear animal masks. She is approached by a stranger who claims to know her and to remember her singing Mozart.
Mother Superior
A demented nun sliding through morphine addiction into madness, while presiding over a regime of lesbianism, torture and death. Sister Gertrude is the head nurse/nun in a general hospital, whose increasingly psychotic behavior endangers the staff and patients around her.
Lady Clementine De Revere
The death of a multinational company’s chairman induces the three candidates for the chairmanship to plot against one another for control of the business.
Teresina
Senator Alberici tries to approach the secretariat of his party with a campaign against immorality. In reality the politician is a pervert with homosexual tendencies that he expresses with men and women.
Mamma di Mario
A young poet falls in love with a sophisticated woman who hates poetry. But the poet wants to win her with poetry — and a bit of help from his mum.
Mrs. Obin
Set in a rural area of France in the 19th century, this simple tale tells the story of a servant girl whose life seems marked by grand tragedy, but whose heart is simple and uncomplicated enough not only to endure, but even to attain serenity in the face of her manifold frustrations. Her only friend, to whom she pours out all her troubles, is an old parrot. When the parrot dies, she reverently has it stuffed and continues telling it her woes. This drama is based on a story by Gustave Flaubert.
Miss Tanner
An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.
Mrs. Chadwick
Passengers on a European train have been exposed to a deadly disease, and nobody will let them off the train.
Germaine
A psychiatrist takes complete responsibility when his son is found floating in a swimming pool, stabbed to death. All the evidence points to a young orphan boy as the real murderer. Why is the psychiatrist claiming the murder as his own?
Signora Pioppi
The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth century Italy, as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.
Anna
A pair of elderly men, friends for 40 years, find their relationship stressed when they set up housekeeping together in order to save money. Exploring similar ground to that covered in Neil Simon's play The Odd Couple, which spawned a movie and a television series, Ce Cher Victor explores the tragic and dramatic aspects of the story. The two friends, meek, sensitive Anselme (Bernard Blier) and blustering Victor (Jacques Dufilho) are swiftly driven apart by circumstances.
Countess (archive footage)
A total re-edit of Mario Bava's gothic classic Lisa and the Devil (1973) for US release in 1975. Cheesy exorcism scenes were shot to try to capitalize on the success of The Exorcist (1973).
la folle de la gare
A disturbed young woman is kept prisoner in a castle by her aunt for her money. The game-keeper, her guardian, tries to rape her but she escapes. In her flight she meets a man also running away, from two killers.
Irene
An Italian nobleman seeks help after his paralyzed daughter becomes possessed by the spirit of a malevolent ancestress.
Héloïse
Two writers and their girlfriends visit the castle of an actor who specializes in playing vampire roles. As the night progresses, they begin to wonder if the man is an actor playing a vampire, or a vampire playing an actor.
Louise
A young Hacienda-owner abuses women due to his traumatic youth while his mother covers for his sadistic actions.
Contessa
Lisa is a tourist in an ancient city. When she gets lost, she finds an old mansion in which to shelter. Soon she is sucked into a vortex of deception, debauchery and evil presided over by housekeeper Leandre.
Marcella Abati - Vanina's mother
In Italy, the gambler and professor of poetry Daniele Dominici arrives in the seaside town of Rimini and is hired to teach for four months in the local high school replacing another teacher. His relationship with his partner Monica is in crisis and he spends most of the time with his new acquaintances and gamblers Giorgio, Marcello and Gerardo. In classroom, he meets the gorgeous nineteen years old student Vanina Abati, who is Gerardo's girlfriend.
Gerda
Julie (Rosemary Dexter) is disturbed by the disappearance of her psychiatrist boyfriend Luca (Horst Frank) following a bizarre dream where she witnessed him murdered. She travels to a seaside village where he might be and encounters Frank (Adolfo Celi), who tells her Luca has indeed been there. Julie's investigation leads her to the house of Gerta (Alida Valli), where the mystery deepens among the odd characters residing at this artists enclave.
Draifa
A young man returns to his countryside hometown to investigate the unclear circumstances behind the death of his father, ostensibly killed by Fascists in 1936, before his birth. As he unravels a web of lies that seems to encompass the whole town, he finds himself entangled in the same web.
Linda Benson
A young physician becomes lonely when his workaholic wife ignores him to concentrate on her professional career. He is befriended by an older female artist who is fond of hallucinogenic mushrooms. When his wife is late for their anniversary celebration, he drinks and takes mushrooms with the artist. He wakes up to find she has died and is fearful he may have accidentally killed her.
Merope
In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Edipo (Oedipus), and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Edipo that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents - only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road...
The Widow - segment 3 'La cornacchia'
Annabel
La Italiana
A deaf and mute vagabond finds a large denomination bill in a Mexico City dump, and while he tries to buy something with it, others try to con him into giving it away. The film was selected as the Mexican entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 36th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
Reina Teresa
Also released as Valley of the Swords, this lugubrious US/Spanish co-production features the usual mid-1960s "tax shelter" international cast. Broderick Crawford plays a despotic 10th century Spanish king who, in cahoots with the invading Moors, has banished handsome Castilian nobleman Spartaco Santoni. With the surreptitious aid of Crawford's daughter Teresa Velasquez, Santoni assembles an army to march against the Moors. In keeping with the 13th century epic poem from which this film was derived ("El Poema de Fernan Gonzales") Santoni's path is smoothed by the celestial intervention of patron saints Milan and Santiago. Among the big names picking up a few tax-free dollars in The Castilian are Cesar Romero, Linda Darnell, Alida Valli and Fernando Rey.
Claudia Lesurf
A young man becomes enraged when his mother remarries his wealthy uncle after his father dies.
Carlo's Mother
Salvatori pays a visit to his old ma who is bedridden in a gloomy old people’s home. He promises her that pretty soon he’ll be rich and they’ll live together in their house. The young man is hired as a catering assistant in a desirable mansion, but the owner of the place is dying. The wife and the daughter are trying to regain the old man’s love and affection while the son is busy gathering his friends for a feast.
Constance Fischer
The widows of four missionaries condemned by the Indians to die at the stake, go to the Amazon jungle to pay homage to them.
Duchess Blanca
A suave art thief romances a wealthy duchess, only to enable him to steal a priceless painting from her collection. Complications ensue.
Thérèse Langlois
Therese, a café owner, mourns the mysterious disappearance of her husband sixteen years earlier. A tramp arrives in the town and she believes him to be her husband. But he is suffering from amnesia and she tries to bring back his memory of earlier times.
Mère Thérèse de Saint-Augustin
This drama about the Carmelite order of nuns is set during the French Revolution. A young woman seeks refuge with the Carmelites because she is terrified of dying during the upheaval. The longer she associates with the nuns the more she is transformed by their faith and devotion.
Louise
Dr. Génessier is riddled with guilt after an accident that he caused disfigures the face of his daughter, the once beautiful Christiane, who outsiders believe is dead. Dr. Génessier, along with accomplice and laboratory assistant Louise, kidnaps young women and brings them to the Génessier mansion. After rendering his victims unconscious, Dr. Génessier removes their faces and attempts to graft them on to Christiane's.
Aurélia Valéano
At the end of the Great War, Arsène Lupin resumed his adventurous life. Theft of three paintings committed by an adversary leads him to the treasure of the Golden Fleece.
Medea / Alida Valli
Carolina
Salvatore, known as "bread loaf", escapes from Caltanissetta's brewery to find his mother he never met. Before arriving in Venice, he stays in a small sea village where he meets people of various kinds.
Aunt Florentine
Ursula finishes her studies and returns to her aunt Florentine and uncle, Ribera who is the count. She falls in love with Lambert, the killer of her uncle.
Rosetta, la moglie
Squarciò, a fisherman, lives with his family on a small island off the Dalmatian coast of Italy. Like his fellow villagers, Squarciò struggles against harsh living conditions, a scarcity of fish in nearby waters and exploitation by the local wholesaler. But while the other fishermen continue to use nets, he goes out to the open sea to fish illegally with bombs. But Squarciò borrows money, loses his boat, and in a moment of supreme desperation, has to bomb directly off-shore, causing the hatred and rejection of his fellow fishermen. Trying to save his family, Squarciò and his young sons sail their new boat out beyond the local waters and bomb-fish again. But this time, the sea exacts a terrible toll…
Claude
Twenty-year-old Joseph and his sixteen-year-old sister Suzanne live in the merciless conditions of an intemperate foreign land with their widowed mother. Their mother attempts to exert a hold on her children by involving them in the family's run-down rice plantation. However the siblings seek liberation, and look for this in their romantic lives. Suzanne becomes involved with Michael and Joseph finds a love interest in Claude.
Irma
A sugar-refinery worker flees his Northern Italy town after a woman refuses his marriage proposal.
La contessa Livia Serpieri
A troubled and neurotic Italian Countess betrays her entire country for a self-destructive love affair with an Austrian Lieutenant.
Roberta Gleukovitch
Eight-year-old Roger Court is in Venice expecting to reunite with his father, British diplomat Major Court (Trevor Howard), whom he hasn't seen in three years. Roger lives with his Aunt Rose since his mother abandoned him.
Alida (segment "Alida Valli")
Five portraits of actresses in their "common" life, seen as women rather than movie stars.
Renata Giustini
Forced by her lover to sell her body, Renata is saved from a suicide attempt by Paolo Martelli, an engineer. She asks him to help her find a job. When Paolo's wife humiliates her, Renata gains revenge by seducing the woman's husband.
Toledo, 1825. To save her fiancé, an opponent of the regime, the beautiful Inès agrees to marry the chief of police.
Lina Castelli
The wife of a mechanic and tester of Alfa Romeo cars becomes the lover of a pilot. The two decide to flee together in Argentina.
Claudia
1939 : what a beautiful year for Claudia and Jerôme. No sooner do they meet that they are under each other's spell. 1939 : what a horrible year for the two lovers : war breaks out before they can get married. They meet again after the war but the enchantment has vanished. They decide to marry but it will be for reason, not for love. Miracles only happen once.
Elaine Corelli
A petty crook moves to an Ohio town and courts a factory owner's disabled daughter.
Carla Alton (as Valli)
Mountain climbers in the Swiss Alps mull over past problems while trying to conquer a perilous peak.
Anna Schmidt
In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime, only to learn he has died. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a "third man" present at the time of Harry's death, running into interference from British officer Major Calloway, and falling head-over-heels for Harry's grief-stricken lover, Anna.
Olga Treskovna
The body of a young actress is brought to her home town by the man who loved her. He knows that she wanted all the church bells to ring for three days after she was buried, but is told that this will cost a lot of money. The checks that he writes to the various churches all bounce, but it is the weekend and, in desperation, he prays that a miracle will happen before the banks reopen. It does, but not in the way he hoped.
Mrs. Paradine
Attorney Anthony Keane agrees to represent Londonite Mrs. Paradine, who has been fingered in her husband's murder. From the start, the married lawyer is drawn to the enigmatic beauty, and he begins to cast about for a way to exonerate his client. Keane puts the Paradine household servant on the stand, suggesting he is the killer. But Keane soon loses his way in the courtroom, and his half-baked plan sets off a stunning chain of events.
Eugenia Grandet
Eugenia is a daughter of a wealthy but miserly man living a simple life in the provincial town of Saumur. Eugenia's inexperience leads her to fall in love with an unworthy man.
Patrizia Martini
A compelling portrayal of postwar Rome
Andreina
One of the most famous movie stars of the moment has a problem with his car. The actor is obliged to stop in a provincial hotel, where he finds himself surrounded by his admirers.
Adriana Rosé
Seduced by count Diego and then abandoned, Adriana finds a job at a large hairdresser shop, so she can lead a dignified life together with her daughter.
Giulia
Kira Argounova
The second part (Part One released the same year was Noi vivi) of the adaptation of Ayn Rand’s debut novel We the Living , a story of life in post-revolutionary Russia and Rand's first statement against communism.
Part One (Part Two was released as Addio Kira!) At 18, the beautiful and smart Kira comes to Petersburg as the Communists consolidate power. She rebuffs a cousin who rises in the Party and may remember the slight. She falls in love with Leo, the son of an aristocrat, who gets into political trouble and never gets out. Meanwhile, a Party leader, Andrei, also loves her, and she feigns love for him to get political protection for Leo and money to pay for his TB treatment. But can Leo forgive her being Andrei's mistress?
Enrichetta
Maria
A singer saves a heavy alcoholic journalist. Fate has a new meeting for them: the two are found in a police station where she was brought with the accusation of prostitution.
Anna Campolmi
Marina Ferri
Alberto Serrani, a mining engineer, meets doctor's daughter Marina, sweet and simple, and the notorious and frivolous Clara who falls for him immediately.
Luisa Maironi
Franco, a young man of noble descent, marries Luisa, daughter of a humble clerk, against his grandmother's will.
Manon Lescaut
Vanina Vanini
Venice Film Festival 1940
Greta Larsen
Vera Fabbri
Magda
Girl
Maria
A taxi driver finds a baby in his cab after the mother accidentally leaves him behind.
Dora Florida / La bella Sulamita
Lauretta
A comedy about an unemployed fellow who goes to live with his brother and runs into trouble with his brother's overbearing wife.
A comedy about a governor who wants a miller's wife and tries to fix a night with her by putting the miller in jail.
