Ennio Morricone was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter, and pianist who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classical works, Morricone is widely considered one of the most prolific and greatest film composers of all time. He received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Golden Globes, six BAFTAs, ten David di Donatello, eleven Nastro d'Argento, two European Film Awards, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and the Polar Music Prize in 2010.
The cinema of Italy comprises the films made within Italy or by Italian directors. Italy is widely considered one of the birthplaces of art cinema, and the stylistic aspect of Italian film has been one of the most important factors in the history of Italian film. As of 2018, Italian films have won 14 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film as well as 12 Palmes d'Or, one Academy Award for Best Picture and many Golden Lions and Golden Bears.
Vittorio De Sica was an Italian film director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement.
Sergio Leone was an Italian filmmaker, credited as the pioneer of the spaghetti Western genre. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema.
Alberto Sordi was an Italian actor, comedian, voice dubber, director, singer, composer and screenwriter.
Mario Alberto Ettore Monicelli was an Italian film director and screenwriter, one of the masters of the commedia all'italiana. He was nominated six times for an Oscar, and received the Golden Lion for his career.
The White Sheik is a 1952 Italian romantic comedy film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Alberto Sordi, Leopoldo Trieste, Brunella Bovo and Giulietta Masina. Written by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano and Michelangelo Antonioni, the film is about a man who brings his new bride to Rome for their honeymoon, to have an audience with the Pope, and to present his wife to his family. When the young woman sneaks away to find the hero of her romance photonovels, the man is forced to spend hour after hour making excuses to his eager family who want to meet his missing bride. The White Sheik was filmed on location in Fregene, Rome, Spoleto and Vatican City.
The Witches is a 1967 commedia all'italiana anthology film produced by Dino De Laurentiis in 1965. It consists of five comic stories about witches, directed by Luchino Visconti, Franco Rossi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Mauro Bolognini and Vittorio De Sica. The film features Silvana Mangano; Clint Eastwood appears in the final story. It was the last film starring Totò to be released in his lifetime.
Enzo Petito was an Italian film and stage character actor. A theatre actor under Eduardo De Filippo in the 1950s in the Teatro San Ferdinando of Naples, with whom he was professionally closely associated, Petito also appeared in several of his films, often co-starring Eduardo or/and brother, Peppino De Filippo, brothers who are considered to be amongst the greatest Italian actors of the 20th century. Petito played minor roles in some memorable commedia all'Italiana movies directed by the likes of Dino Risi and Mario Monicelli in the late 1950s and early 1960s, often appearing alongside actors such as Nino Manfredi, Alberto Sordi, Peppino De Filippo, Anna Maria Ferrero, and Totò.
Luigi Comencini was an Italian film director. Together with Dino Risi, Ettore Scola, and Mario Monicelli he was considered among the masters of the "commedia all'italiana" genre.
Antonio Pietrangeli was an Italian film director and screenwriter. He was a major practitioner of the commedia all'italiana genre.
Commedia all'italiana, or Italian-style comedy, is an Italian film genre born in Italy in the 1950s and developed in the 1960s and 1970s. It is widely considered to have started with Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street in 1958, and derives its name from the title of Pietro Germi's Divorce Italian Style (1961). According to most of the critics, La Terrazza (1980) by Ettore Scola is the last work considered part of the commedia all'italiana.
The David di Donatello for Best Score, known as the David di Donatello per il miglior musicista prior to 2021, is a film award presented annually by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano to recognize outstanding efforts on the part of film music composers who have worked within the Italian film industry during the year preceding the ceremony. The award has been given every year since 1975, with the exception of the 1979 and 1980 editions.
Rodolfo Sonego was an Italian screenwriter.
Bianco, rosso e Verdone is a 1981 Italian comedy film directed and starred by Carlo Verdone, playing three characters.
Christian De Sica is an Italian actor and film director.
An American in Rome is a 1954 Italian comedy film directed by Steno. The film consists in a satire of Americanization, and it was referred as "a milestone in the evolution of Italian self-identification". It starred Alberto Sordi, with a young Ursula Andress in a minor role. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."
Il malato immaginario is a 1979 Italian comedy film directed by Tonino Cervi. It is a loose adaptation of Molière's Le Malade imaginaire set in 1600 papal Rome.
An Italian in America is a 1967 Commedia all'italiana film co-written and directed by Alberto Sordi and starring the same Sordi opposite Vittorio De Sica. Screenwriter Rodolfo Sonego was inspired for the plot by the participation of one of his friends, the painter Salvatore Scarpitta, to the NBC program This Is Your Life.
Brando De Sica is an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter. He is a member of a prominent artistic Italian family of De Sica and Verdone, a grandson of Vittorio De Sica.
