Filmokosmos: Italia

Cabiria is a Roman child when her home is destroyed by a volcano. Sold in Carthage to be sacrificed in a temple, she is saved by Fulvio, a Roman spy. But danger lurks, and hatred between Rome and Carthage can only lead to war.

Assunta Spina is a tragedy set in Naples at the beginning of the twentieth century. Assunta and Michele are in love but others come between them and there is much jealousy. They fight and Michele is sent to prison for two years for assault. Nevertheless, because Assunta still loves Michele she is vulnerable when Federigo offers to help Michele but only if Assunta becomes his mistress. Michele is released early from prison, finds Assunta and Federigo together and kills Federigo. When the police arrive, Assunta takes the blame for Michele's crime.

A Faustian tale about an old woman who makes a pact with Mephisto to regain her youth, in return she must stay away from love. After the deal she meets two brothers who fall in love with her.

Clotilde, wife of lawyer Giulio has just returned from an extramarital affair that ended badly: the only bond she still has with her husband is the hope of finding their daughter. The house is bursting with gossip and rumors. One day comes news about their daughter.

A crown, supposedly made from a nail out of the Cross of Christ and the metal of Roman swords, becomes a legend and a symbol of justice.

During the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1944, the Resistance leader, Giorgio Manfredi, is chased by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a way to escape.

American military personnel interact warily with a variety of Italian locals over a year and a half in the push north during the Italian Campaign of WWII as German forces make their retreat.

Two shoeshine boys in postwar Rome, Italy save up to buy a horse, but their involvement as dupes in a burglary lands them in juvenile prison; the experience take a devastating toll on their friendship.

Giacomo Casanova returns to Venice, to help his brother, falsely accused of robbery.

In rural Sicily, the fishermen live at the mercy of the greedy wholesalers. One family risks everything to buy their own boat and operate independently.

In post-war Italy, a working-class man's bicycle is stolen, endangering his efforts to find work. He and his son set out to find it.

A young German boy faces the problems of the tough life in the immediate post-WWII Berlin.

A story of teenager from Rome during World War II.

Matthew, a rich nationalist Jew and a contemporary of Jesus, regards the latter as an obstacle in this struggle to free their people from the Roman yoke by means of revolt. He incites the people against Jesus and prevents his own wife, a true Christian in her heart, from offering the Redeemer a drink of water at his crucifixion on Golgotha. For this act Matthew is condemned to wander eternally on the earth with every rest denied to him, even that of the grave. We go forward to Paris in 1940. Matthew, miraculously still alive, is now the young banker Matthew Blumenthal. Rich and powerful, it would be easy to escape from Nazi persecution, but he chooses not to do so. He wishes to share the lot of his fellow Jews and, with many others, is despatched to Germany and detained in a concentration camp where everyone is brutally ill-treated. Being young, robust and full of energy, he does not resign himself to the situation, but succeeds in organizing a rebellion and flees with several comrades. He manages to reach safety, but when he learns that a hundred hostages will be killed if he does not return to captivity, he surrenders voluntarily and undergoes martyrdom, whereupon the curse of the Wandering Jew is finally lifted.

Two criminals on the run end up working in a rice field and decide to recruit other workers for their next robbery.

Based on the Nikolai Gogol story but set in 1950s Italy, THE OVERCOAT is the story of a poor city hall clerk (Renato Rascel) whose only desire is to buy a new overcoat.

An elderly man and his dog struggle to survive on his government pension in Rome.

An unhappily married couple attempts to find direction and insight while vacationing in Naples.

An Italian Countess is allied with Nationalists during the Italian-Austrian war of unification. However, she risks betraying their cause when she falls in love with an Austrian lieutenant.

A care-free girl is sold to a traveling entertainer, consequently enduring physical and emotional pain along the way.

A trio of con-men led by a lonesome swindler must deal with their job and family pressures.

A humble clerk courts a woman who awaits her lover's return night after night.

A motley quintet of inept small-time thieves attempt the burglary of a local pawnshop in this Italian farce.

Bardone, a petty con man, is arrested by the Gestapo and coerced into impersonating a partisan leader in order to expose another resistance organizer.