Maria Denis

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.

Nine episodes about life in Italy in the period just before its economic boom.

Inspired to the real story of the Carabiniere Salvo D'Acquisto. We see how, to save 22 hostages from dead sentence by Nazi, he decided to sacrifice himself.

Angelo has been drafted into the Italian Army in World War II. He does not like people shooting at him, so he tries all sorts of tricks to avoid being caught up in the action. However, events always seem to lead him back to the fighting.

A sinister fortress on an island where the sun never seems to shine. An officer whose values have long gone a thing of the past.

A movie actress gets arrested and has a hard time finding sleep at the police station. Then her director appears and saves her.

Chance brings four men together at a coffee table during a poker game. The entrance of a woman brings back memories to all of them.

A mob boss seeks refuge from the police at the home of an ordinary family.

Barcelona, in the forties. Young Andrea comes to town to start college in the midst of an oppressive environment and extreme poverty. She's staying at her aunt Angustias, along with other family members. But the quarrels between them are continuous, making evident the open wounds left by the Spanish civil war.

Four young friends share the carefree, cheerfulness, laughter and dances of Bohemian life. Rodolphe the painter, Alexandre Chaunard the composer, Colline the philosopher, as well as Marcel and his friend Musette. Mimi, a romantic young girl, falls in love with Rodolphe.

A host of college girls take different life paths in the Italy of the 1930s.

Directed by Ferdinando Maria Poggioli.

Italian film directed by Ferdinando Maria Poggioli.

A university student falls in love with a seamstress. But one day he meets a beautiful woman and things become complicated.

In 1830 Pierre Courier, a rich and elderly shipowner, awaits the return of his son Stefano, who has just returned from a long trip to Trinidad in the ship in which he is captain.

Set during the Spanish civil war, the story of a commander of a fort Alcazar in Toledo, faithful to general Franco.

A favorite student of an old dance teacher gets casted in an important pantomime. When the teacher dies on the stage, she finds support from a journalist's affection to overcome the difficult moment.

A precious painting suddenly disappears from the house of a noble Italian family. A relative from America investigates the mystery.

Lorenzino de 'Medici manipulates Alessandro ruler of Florence to save his beloved Bianca.

A school teacher falls in love with one of his female colleague, who teaches gymnastics. She returns his love, but this discovered by his students who try and sabotage their relationship.

The story is the harried attempt of a Sicilian partisan, as part of the risorgimento, to reach Garibaldi's headquarters in Northern Italy, and to petition the revered revolutionary to rescue part of his besieged land. Along the way, the peasant hero encounters many colorful Italians, differing in class and age, and holding political opinions of every type. There is a key train scene, and the film ends on the battlefield, Italian unification a success, despite brutal losses.

A woman leaves her husband and her young daughter after she falls for a rally driver.

His 1933 debut, following some years as a journalist and then script boy, was Treno popolare, an early sound lark about several Roman petit bourgeois on a day trip to the country that was influenced by the German proto-neorealist silent picture People on Sunday (1930). Produced at the height of the fascist era, Treno popolare was nonetheless free of propaganda, and featured the first film score by the legendary composer Nino Rota.

Bruno, a chauffeur having some problem in keeping a job, meets one morning Mariuccia, a taxi driver’s daughter working as a perfumery’s shop assistant, and trying to impress her, pretending to be rich, uses his employer’s car to took her on a trip to the lakes, but things don’t work as planned and to conquer Mariuccia’s hearth won’t be so easy…

Two different couples on blind dates get mixed up when they pick the same location to meet.