Actor: Olinto Cristina

Difficult Years

Aldo Piscitello, a minor government clerk, is forced in 1934 to join the Fascist party. When the war comes, he finds himself able only to talk ineffectually in secret against Mussolini, even as his own son Giovanni is sent into battle. By the end of the war, Aldo has found the courage to stand up for his beliefs, but by then it is too late.

The Children Are Watching Us

In his first collaboration with renowned screenwriter and longtime partner Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica examines the cataclysmic consequences of adult folly on an innocent child. Heralding the pair’s subsequent work on some of the masterpieces of Italian neorealism, The Children Are Watching Us is a vivid, deeply humane portrait of a family’s disintegration.

House of Ricordi

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

Felicita Colombo

In the center of Milan, Felicita Colombo successfully manages a delicatessen that has among its customers the best bourgeoisie of the city.

The Overcoat

Based on the Nikolai Gogol story but set in 1950s Italy, "The Overcoat" is the story of a poor city hall clerk whose only desire is to buy a new overcoat.

Tenebre

Plot unavailable

I'll Give a Million

A comedy about a hobo and a millionaire who swap roles after the millionaire rescues the hobo from a suicide attempt.

Destiny Unknown

Based on fact, Passaporto Rosso (Red Passport) details the plight of a group of poor Italian immigrants who are hired as railroad workers in turn-of-the-century South America. In addition to facing poverty, deprivation, and prejudice, the immigrants are also bedeviled by a raging fever epidemic. Finally achieving a measure of prosperity, the Italians are forced to confront tragedy once more when their grown children march off to WWI. Though Isa Miranda is top-billed, she has very little to do in comparison with male lead Filippo Scelso. Passaporto Rosso was released in the U.S. as Destiny Unknown.

Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal

A story of the Second Punic Wars, beginning with Scipio's futile pleas to the Roman Senate to build an army to battle Hannibal, that climaxes with the battle of Zama.

Noi peccatori

A man and a woman love each other, but they can’t marry because he’s ashamed of his unjustly incarcerated mother. What’s more, he loses his eyesight in an accident.