The cinema of Italy comprises the films made within Italy or by Italian directors. Italy is one of the birthplaces of art cinema and the stylistic aspect of 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.
Lucio Fulci was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. Although he worked in a wide array of genres through a career spanning nearly five decades, including comedies and Spaghetti Westerns, he garnered an international cult following for his giallo and horror films.
Francesco Benenato, known as Franco Franchi, was an Italian actor, comedian and singer.
Mario Bava was an Italian filmmaker who worked variously as a director, cinematographer, special effects artist and screenwriter, frequently referred to as the "Master of Italian Horror" and the "Master of the Macabre". His low-budget genre films, known for their distinctive visual flair and stylish technical ingenuity, feature recurring themes and imagery concerning the conflict between illusion and reality, as well as the destructive capacity of human nature. He was a pioneer of Italian genre cinema, and is regarded as one of the most influential auteurs of the horror film genre.
Giuseppe Avati, better known as Pupi Avati, is an Italian film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known to horror film fans for his two giallo masterpieces, The House with Laughing Windows (1976) and Zeder (1983).
Lamberto Bava is an Italian film director. Born in Rome, Bava began working as an assistant director for his director father Mario Bava. Lamberto co-directed the 1979 television film La Venere d'Ille with his father and in 1980 directed his first solo feature film Macabre.
Carlo Rambaldi was an Italian special effects artist, winner of three Oscars: one Special Achievement Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1977 for the 1976 version of King Kong and two Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects in 1980 and 1983 for, respectively, Alien (1979) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). He is most famous for his work in those two last mentioned films, that is for the mechanical head-effects for the creature in Alien and the design of the title character of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Francesco "Ciccio" Ingrassia was an Italian actor, comedian and film director.
Fantasporto, also known as Fantas, is an international film festival, annually organized since 1981 in Porto, Portugal. Giving screen space to fantasy/science fiction/horror-oriented commercial feature films, auteur films and experimental projects from all over the world, Fantasporto has created enthusiastic audiences, ranging from cinephiles to more popular spectators, with an annual average of 110,000 attendees. It was rated in Variety as one of the 25 leading festivals of the world. In its 27th edition in February 2006 the festival reached 104,000 people and 5,000 media references, both domestic and international, with a record of 187 hours of TV time. Present in Porto were about 100 members of the foreign press and about 250 Portuguese journalists and media representatives.
The David di Donatello Awards, named after Donatello's David, a symbolic statue of the Italian Renaissance, are film awards given out each year by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano. There are 26 award categories, as of 2023.
Ida Galli is an Italian film actress best known for her roles in Spaghetti Western and giallo films in the 1960s and 1970s. Galli has appeared under several pseudonyms, including Arianna, Evelyn Stewart and Isli Oberon.
Franco and Ciccio were a comic comedy duo formed by Italian actors Franco Franchi (1928–1992) and Ciccio Ingrassia (1922–2003), particularly popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Their collaboration began in 1954 in the theatre field, and ended with Franchi's death in 1992. The two made their cinema debuts in 1960 with the film Appuntamento a Ischia. They remained active until 1984 when their last film together, Kaos, was shot, although there were some interruptions in 1973 and from 1975 to 1980.
The 71st annual Venice International Film Festival took place in Venice, Italy between 27 August to 6 September 2014. The festival opened with Alejandro G. Iñárritu's film Birdman, and closed with Ann Hui's drama film The Golden Era. Italian actress Luisa Ranieri hosted the opening and closing nights of the festival. The Swedish film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, directed by Roy Andersson, won the Golden Lion, and Joshua Oppenheimer's The Look of Silence won the Grand Jury Prize.
Kristian Sensini is an Italian film composer flutist and music producer. He works for music related Thriller, Horror, Drama Movie, Fantasy, Documentary, Animation and Cartoon. He has composed music for 10 featured films, including film scores for My Love Affair with Marriage in 2022, Rocks in My Pockets in 2014, Hyde's Secret Nightmare in 2011, Dead Enders in 2010, Monkeyshine in 2008.
The 73rd annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 31 August to 10 September 2016.
The 74th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 30 August to 9 September 2017.
Reveries of a Solitary Walker, also known as Reveries of a Lonely Walker and Reveries of a Solitary Stroller, is a 2014 Italian live-action/claymation fantasy film directed by Paolo Gaudio, inspired by Reveries of a Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It was screened at the Sci-Fi-London festival, and later released in the United States by Uncork’d Entertainment. It is also available on Prime Video.
The 75th Venice International Film Festival was held from 29 August to 8 September 2018.
The 78th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 1 to 11 September 2021.
The 79th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 31 August to 10 September 2022. Noah Baumbach's White Noise was the festival's opening film, and Francesco Carrozzini's The Hanging Sun was the closing film.
