Vittorio De Sica was an Italian film director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement.
Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni was an Italian film actor and one of the country's most iconic male performers of the 20th century. He played leading roles for many of Italy's top directors in a career spanning 147 films between 1939 and 1996, and garnered many international honours including two BAFTA Awards, two Best Actor awards at the Venice and Cannes film festivals, two Golden Globes, and three Academy Award nominations.
A Special Day is a 1977 period drama film directed and co-written by Ettore Scola, produced by Carlo Ponti, and starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. Set in Rome in 1938, its narrative follows a housewife (Loren) and her neighbor (Mastroianni) who stay home the day Adolf Hitler visits Benito Mussolini.
Francesca Romana Rivelli, professionally known as Ornella Muti, is an Italian actress.
Mauro Bolognini was an Italian film and stage director.
Maria Luisa Ceciarelli, known professionally as Monica Vitti, was an Italian actress who starred in several award-winning films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni during the 1960s. She appeared with Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon, Richard Harris, Terence Stamp, and Dirk Bogarde. On her death, Italian culture minister Dario Franceschini called her "the Queen of Italian cinema".
Eraclio Petri, commonly known as Elio Petri, was an Italian film and theatre director, screenwriter and film critic. The Museum of Modern Art described him as "one of the preeminent political and social satirists of 1960s and early 1970s Italian cinema". His film Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion won the 1971 Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, and his subsequent film The Working Class Goes to Heaven received the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.
Francesco Rosi was an Italian filmmaker, screenwriter and theatre director. His film The Mattei Affair won the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Rosi's films, especially those of the 1960s and 1970s, often appeared to have political messages. While the topics of his later films became less politically oriented and more angled toward literature, he continued to direct until 1997, his last film being the adaptation of Primo Levi's book, The Truce.
That Night in Varennes is a 1982 French-Italian drama film directed by Ettore Scola. It is based on a novel by Catherine Rihoit. It tells the story of a fictional meeting among Restif de la Bretonne, Giacomo Casanova, Thomas Paine and Sophie de la Borde. They are all traveling together in a coach that is a few hours behind the one that is carrying King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in their flight to Varennes during the French Revolution.
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.
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 Nastro d'Argento is a film award assigned each year, since 1946, by Sindacato Nazionale dei Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani, the association of Italian film critics.
Furio Scarpelli, also called Scarpelli, was an Italian screenwriter, famous for his collaboration on numerous commedia all'italiana films with Agenore Incrocci, forming the duo Age & Scarpelli.
The 23rd Cannes Film Festival ran from 3 to 18 May 1970. This year, Robert Favre LeBret, the founder of the festival, decided not to include any films from Russia and Japan. He was tired of the "Slavic spectacles and Japanese samurai flicks.". The Russians took back their juror Sergei Obraztsov and left the jury panel with only eight members.
Marisa Merlini was an Italian character actress active in Italy's post-World War II cinema. Merlini appeared in over fifty films during her career, which spanned from World War II to 2005. In Luigi Comencini's 1953 film Pane, amore e fantasia, she portrayed Annarella, a village midwife, who marries the local police marshal, played by Vittorio De Sica.
Arnoldo Foà was an Italian actor, voice actor, theatre director, singer and writer. He appeared in more than 130 films between 1938 and 2014.
The 40th Cannes Film Festival was held from 7 to 19 May 1987. The Palme d'Or went to the Sous le soleil de Satan by Maurice Pialat, a choice which was considered "highly controversial" and the prize was given under the jeers of the public. Pialat is quoted to have retorted "You don't like me? Well, let me tell you that I don't like you either!"
Specializing in the field of drama, with particular attention to the drama of its national heritage, the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D'Amico has played a key role in the Italian film and theater scene and is currently headed by Professor Luigi Maria Musati. It has prepared artists such as Margherita Buy, Vittorio Gassman, Luigi Lo Cascio, Anna Magnani, Nino Manfredi, and Monica Vitti. Other former alumni include Antoniano, Manuela Arcuri, Mino Bellei, Carmelo Bene, Dirk van den Berg, Giuliana Berlinguer, Alessio Boni, Alberto Bonucci, Giulio Bosetti, Renato De Carmine, Ennio Fantastichini, Gabriele Ferzetti (expelled), Scilla Gabel, Domiziana Giordano, Michele Placido, Luca Ronconi, Gian Maria Volonté and Lina Wertmüller.
