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Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bisset LdH, popularly known as Jacqueline Bisset, is a British actress. She is best known for her roles in films such as Airport (1970), Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and The Sweet Ride (1968). She received multiple Golden Globe Award nominations.

Jacqueline Bisset Biography: Age, Early Life, Family, Education

Jacqueline Bisset was born on September 13, 1944 (Jacqueline Bisset age: 80) in Surrey, England. Her father, George Maxwell Fraser Bisset, is a general practitioner. Her mother, Arlette Alexander, is a former lawyer. Bisset grew up near Reading, Berkshire. She has a brother, Max Bisset.

Bisset entered the industry through modelling. She took acting lessons and worked as a fashion model in order to pay for them. Bisset attended school at the Lycée Français de Londres in London. Her parents divorced after several years of marriage.

Jacqueline Bisset Biography: Career, Roman Polanski

Bisset started her career in film by first appearing uncredited as...

Iconic Italian star Monica Vitti is a stateside tribute with the posthumous festival “Monica Vitti: La Modernista,” presented by Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà. The actress, who died in 2022, was immortalized onscreen with her famed collaborations with auteurs Michelangelo Antonioni and Luis Buñuel. Now, the 14-film series at Flc will be the first North American retrospective dedicated to Vitti’s career. The series will feature new restorations of her classic films including “Red Desert” and “La supertestimone.”

“We are pleased to partner with Cinecittà to celebrate one of Italy’s most revered actresses,” Florence Almozini, Vice President of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center, said in a press statement. “It is a privilege to have the opportunity to present decades worth of films from Monica Vitti’s illustrious and prolific career, especially with many restored versions of her legendary work.”

Vitti most famously starred in Antonioni’s “L’avventura,” which...

Silver Bear Award Winners (Photo Credit – Koimoi)

Berlin International Film Festival is one of the biggest award shows in the world and is known for recognizing cinema as an art. The show has many prestigious awards, including the Golden Bear for the Best Film and the Silver Bear for the Best Director. The Silver Bear, introduced in 1956, has since been one of the most coveted awards for a director. That honor has been bestowed upon filmmakers whose vision and storytelling push the boundaries of creative expression.

Remarkably, only four directors have been awarded this award on multiple occasions. Among this prestigious quartet stands a figure whose legacy transcends national borders: Satyajit Ray. His work not only elevated Indian cinema to a global platform but also set a high benchmark for artistic excellence. Ray is the only director to win the award in two consecutive years.

Satyajit Ray won the Silver...

The collection “Let's make it weird: Laughing with Italian Comedies” is now showing exclusively on Mubi.Most of us have experienced the joys of watching Italian cinema—not least of which is the delight of laughing at Italian comedies. In the second season of Mubi Podcast: Voci Italiane Contemporanee, we explore how Italian comedy has changed since the days of classic postwar “Commedia all’Italiana,” tracking the evolution of the genre to explore what makes us laugh today and why. Our guide is comedian and cinephile Saverio Raimondo, who has conducted five conversations with contemporary filmmakers, critics, and stand-up comedians. This episode features Paola Minaccioni:Does contemporary social awareness and sensitivity change the way we watch the films of Dino Risi, Mario Monicelli and Carlo Vanzina? Might we now perceive that these Italian comedy masterpieces are sexist?We discuss these questions with Paola Minaccioni, one of the leading authorities on Italian comedy,...

Find Me Falling is a romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Stelana Kliris. The Netflix film follows the story of a washed-up rock star whose comeback album fails after which he retreats to his cliffside home in Cyprus, where he finds new friends and an old flame. Find Me Falling stars Harry Connick Jr. in the lead role with Ali Fumiko Whitney, Agni Scott, Clarence Smith, Christodoulos Martas, and Lea Maleni starring in supporting roles. So, if you loved Netflix’s charming romantic comedy film with great characters and a feel-good story, here are some similar movies you could watch next.

Forever My Girl (Rent on Prime Video) Credit – Ld Entertainment

Forever My Girl is a romantic drama film written and directed by Bethany Ashton Wolf. Based on the novel of the same name by author Heidi McLaughlin, the 2018 film follows the story of Liam Page, a popular country...

Adriana Chiesa, the pioneering Italian sales agent who has been a fixture at Cannes for 40 years, has sold her film library to Italy’s Minerva Pictures.

The 85-title Acek library comprises a broad mix of prominent works by revered directors such as Lina Wertmuller’s “Swept Away” (pictured) and “Summer Night With Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and a Scent of Basil” and cult movies including Lamberto Bava’s gonzo horror “Macabro,” revenge Western “Garringo” by Rafael Romero Merchant, and Asia Argento’s directorial debut, “Scarlet Diva,” on which Chiesa and Minerva chief Gianluca Curti jointly served as executive producers.

“I am particularly happy because I know that Gianluca appreciates the value of my library and will carry on its legacy with all the love and respect that it deserves,” Chiesa told Variety. She added that she will now continue her production activity, making documentaries such as “Water and Sugar: Carlo...

Patton Oswalt once sagely joked that science is "all about coulda, not about shoulda." History is riddled with examples confirming his premise: the development of the A-bomb, Project MKUltra, and the advent of biological warfare. The worst of these achievements are irrevocable threats to humankind; the threat of nuclear war — which, if waged at full scale, would likely render most of the planet uninhabitable — will always be with us. Other thresholds, once passed, would render life barely worth living.

The growing popularity of ChatGPT has been a societal litmus test. People are understandably curious about the hot new technology. Goldbrickers at the professional and academic levels are downright ecstatic about its effort-saving applications. As the Artificial Intelligence model becomes more sophisticated, it will likely be able to churn out A-level analyses and essays. In time, ChatGPT and AI programs like it will be capable of generating novels, screenplays and, most chillingly,...

Italian film legend Gina Lollobrigida, who achieved international stardom during the 1950s and was dubbed “the most beautiful woman in the world” after the title of one of her movies, died in Rome on Monday, her agent said. She was 95.

The agent, Paola Comin, didn’t provide details. Lollobrigida had surgery in September to repair a thigh bone broken in a fall. She returned home and said she had quickly resumed walking.

A drawn portrait of the diva graced a 1954 cover of Time magazine, which likened her to a “goddess” in an article about Italian movie-making. More than a half-century later, Lollobrigida still turned heads with her brown, curly hair and statuesque figure, and preferred to be called an actress instead of the gender-neutral term actor.

Read More: Evel Knievel’s Son Robbie Dies At Age 60 After Pancreatic Cancer Battle

“Lollo,” as she was lovingly nicknamed by Italians, began making...

A lone stranger wanders through the countryside. He walks into a small town that, at first, looks deserted. When the stranger finally meets a few locals and begins talking to them, he finds that the entire town, though remote, is under the uneasy control of two warring criminal gangs. The stranger, identified as a dangerous handler of weapons, is enlisted by each side of the gang conflict to help eradicate the other. The stranger, cynical and perhaps a bit playful, manipulates both sides into killing each other. After a violent conflagration, the stranger wanders away from the town, happily leaving the madness behind.

This is the story of Akira Kurosawa's 1961 film "Yojimo," written by Kurosawa and Ryūzō Kikushima. "Yojimbo" is easily the most cynical film in Kurosawa's filmography, bitterly taking glee in the copious amount of stupidity-inspired death depicted. Kurosawa, with a scoff, might have been making a dismissive...

Cinematography retrospectives are the way to go—more than a thorough display of talent, it exposes the vast expanse a Dp will travel, like an education in form and business all the same. Accordingly I’m happy to see the Criterion Channel give a 25-film tribute to James Wong Howe, whose career spanned silent cinema to the ’70s, populated with work by Howard Hawks, Michael Curtz, Samuel Fuller, Alexander Mackendrick, Sydney Pollack, John Frankenheimer, and Raoul Walsh.

Further retrospectives are granted to Romy Schneider (recent repertory sensation La piscine among them), Carlos Saura (finally a chance to see Peppermint frappe!), the British New Wave, and groundbreaking distributor Cinema 5, who brought to U.S. shores everything from The Man Who Fell to Earth and Putney Swope to Pumping Iron and Scenes from a Marriage.

September also yields streaming premieres for the recently restored Bronco Bullfrog, Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands,...

A round up of stories from Locarno Film Festival.

As the first week of the Locarno Film Festival (August 3-13) comes to an end, here is the latest from the industry side of the event in Switzerland.

Six projects at Locarno Pitching Day

Feature films from Italy, Austria and Switzerland were among the projects pitched at the Ticino Film Commission’s Locarno Pitching Day held yesterday (August 8).

Staged in collaboration with Locarno Pro, the event was aimed at film industry professionals seeking co-production partners, distribution and financing for projects that are in development and could be further developed in the Swiss region.

Joe and Anthony Russo's path to becoming the kingpins of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was neither direct nor likely. Prior to taking on "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," the brothers had been most successful as single-camera sitcom directors; they won an Emmy for their work on the pilot of "Arrested Development," and shot some of the most beloved episodes of "Community." They were far less successful as filmmakers. Their first feature, "Welcome to Collinwood," a remake of Mario Monicelli's delightful heist flick "Big Deal on Madonna Street" starring William H. Macy, Sam Rockwell and George Clooney, fell flat with critics and audiences. Their second effort,...

The post How Steven Soderbergh Shaped The Russo Brothers' Filmmaking Style appeared first on /Film.

For its 75th edition, Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival, long known as a global indie cinema temple, is looking to the future while repositioning itself as a forward-thinking hub for a wider range of movies, including studio and streamer titles, with broad audience appeal.

“We believe that entertainment can be both serious and fun: I don’t see an opposing scenario where entertainment is only cheap, and seriousness is only extremely highbrow,” says the fest’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro.

Now on his second edition at the fest’s helm, the Italian critic is putting his stamp on Locarno with a lineup that, along with straightforward auteur movies of various kinds, increasingly includes comedies and genre films. The fest’s eclectic nature is illustrated by t he choice of the opener, Sony ’s frothy action thriller “Bullet Train,” directed by David Leitch, which Aaron Taylor-Johnson will be tubthumping on Aug.

Italian critic Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, has assembled what he defines as a “broad, diversified and inclusive program” for the 75th edition of the Swiss event, which will open with “Atomic Blonde” helmer David Leitch’s Brad Pitt-starrer “Bullet Train” screening on its 8,000-seat outdoor Piazza Grande.

The frothy U.S. action film is precisely the type of smart entertainment Nazzaro is becoming known for programming in this temple of European indie cinema, alongside smaller budget titles with more gravitas.

As always, the Locarno selection is a mix of potential discoveries from newcomers and works by known directors, including masters like Russia’s Alexander Sokurov, who is expected to make the trek to unveil his new work “Fairytale,” in competition. Nazzaro spoke to Variety the day after announcing his 2022 lineup about his selection criteria and why he decided not to boycott Sokurov despite...

Above: Italian poster for The Girl with a Pistol. Artist: Giorgio Olivetti.Monica Vitti, who died on February 2nd at the age of 90, was an icon of modern cinema—one of its most famous and most beautiful faces—but she is best known outside Italy for just four films, all of which she made for her one-time partner Michelangelo Antonioni. In the original Italian poster for L’avventura (1960), the film that made both their names, her head is tilted to the side, her face barely visible: she is mostly a shock of blonde hair. But in the posters that were created as that film travelled the globe, and in her ensuing posters for Antonioni's La notte (1961), L’eclisse (1962), and Red Desert (1964), she gets her close-up, usually staring into the middle distance or directly at the viewer. Always impassive, never smiling. But of course, in a career that lasted another 25 years there were many more films,...

Monica Vitti, the Italian screen icon known for a string of 1960s classics, died Wednesday at 90, according to reports in Italy.

The news was conveyed by writer, director and politician Walter Veltroni on behalf of Vitti’s husband, Roberto Russo:

Roberto Russo, il suo compagno di tutti questi anni, mi chiede di comunicare che Monica Vitti non c’è più. Lo faccio con dolore, affetto, rimpianto.

— walter veltroni (@VeltroniWalter) February 2, 2022

The feted actress, best known for movies including L’Avventura (1960), Red Desert (1964), L’Eclisse (1962) and La Notte (1961), had been battling Alzheimer’s disease for two decades.

Born Maria Luisa Ceciarelli on November 3, 1931, in Rome, Vitti acted in amateur productions as a teenager then trained at Rome’s National Academy of Dramatic Arts.

The actress shot to global fame following spectacular collaborations with legendary director Michelangelo Antonioni in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Vitti starred in L’Avventura as a detached and...

Il bandito (1946) When his peers were busy whitewashing their nation’s crimes in the preposterous pietism of Neorealism, he made films that exposed the transactional individualism that ruled post-war Italy. When orthodox Marxists deemed commercial cinema the ultimate evil, he infused it with possibilities that exceeded box office returns. While everyone shot in Rome, he set many of his films in the anonymous provinces of northern Italy. Too popular to be considered an auteur yet too intellectual to be easily brushed aside, these may well be some of the reasons why Alberto Lattuada has occupied such an ambivalent place in the history of Italian cinema, one that has resisted canonization and has been largely confined to the country’s borders. An almost complete retrospective of his films, organized by Roberto Turigliatto during the last edition of the Locarno Film Festival, has given us the chance to (re-)discover a director who has worked across genres,...

“My Brilliant Friend” star Margherita Mazzucco is set to play Saint Clare of Assisi in Susanna Nicchiarelli’s new feature film “Chiara” which will conclude the director’s trilogy of female biopics also comprising “Nico, 1988” and “Miss Marx.”

Nicchiarelli’s portrait of the 13th century saint born into a wealthy family who at age 18 became a nun after hearing St. Francis preach is being produced by the director’s regular producers, Marta Donzelli and Gregorio Paonessa’s Vivo Film, with Rai Cinema and Belgium’s Tarantula.

Italian actor Andrea Carpenzano (“The Champion”) is also set to star.

“The strength of Chiara’s story lies in her modernity: after all, we are talking about an eighteen year old who, although in a very different context from ours, fights for her dreams,” Nicchiarelli said in a statement. “I am convinced that his story can also speak to the girls and boys of today,...

Ace Italian cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, who was instrumental to the making of masterpieces such as Luchino Visconti’s “The Leopard” and Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord,” but also worked in Hollywood and was an Oscar nominee for Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz,” has died. He was 97.

Rotunno, who was nicknamed Peppino, died on Sunday in his Rome home, his family announced without disclosing the exact cause.

Born in Rome on March 23, 1923, Rotunno started his remarkable six-decade career as a still photographer at the Italian capital’s Cinecittà Studios in 1940 before being recruited in 1942 to serve as a newsreel cameraman with the Italian army where he cut his teeth as a cinematographer.

In 1943 at age 20, with World War II still raging, Rotunno was hired as an assistant Dp by Roberto Rossellini for the 1943 war film “L’Uomo dalla croce” (The Man with a Cross), a drama about a military chaplain.

After the war,...

Chances are, if you’ve seen many of the late films of Theodoros Angelopoulos, Michelangelo Antonioni (everything since L’avventura), Marco Bellocchio, Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini (almost everything since Amarcord), Mario Monicelli, Elio Petri, Francesco Rosi, Andrei Tarkovsky (Nostalghia), the Taviani brothers, and/or Luchino Visconti, and paid much attention to their script credits, you know who Tonino Guerra (1920–2012) was and is—a ubiquitous presence in modernist European cinema, especially its Italian branches. Petri was his first cinematic employer, after Guerra started out as a schoolteacher and poet whose parents were illiterate; later on, he became a visual artist as well as a screenwriter with over a hundred credits.Even after one acknowledges the exceptionally collaborative role played by multiple writers on Italian films, it seems that no one else was considered quite as essential by so many important directors. In Nicola Tranquillino’s documentary about Tonino (visible on YouTube...

Marco Bellocchio’s elegant mob drama “The Traitor,” about the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, was the big winner at Italy’s 65th David di Donatello Awards, the country’s equivalent of the Oscars.

“The Traitor” scored six statuettes including best picture, director, and actor honors.

The prizes were announced – but not physically given out – during a no-frills ceremony conducted in primetime on pubcaster Rai by star host Carlo Conti in an empty studio with talents appearing in live web platform link-ups. The event served as a collective rebirth rite just when local coronavirus lockdown restrictions slowly begin to lift.

“My wish is for the Italian film community to start working again,” Bellocchio, who is a revered veteran auteur, said speaking from his home, before adding: “I’m 80, and I also hope to make a few more movies.”

“The Traitor,...

The David di Donatello Awards, which are modeled on the Oscars, were established in the 1950s as Italy’s film industry started thriving amid the country’s postwar reconstruction effort.

Below are some milestones that provide a partial mini-history of postwar Italian cinema.

1956: The first David di Donatello awards ceremony takes place at Rome’s Cinema Fiamma. The gold statuette, which is a replica of Michelangelo’s David, is made by Bulgari. Vittorio De Sica, Walt Disney, and Gina Lollobrigida are among the year’s prizewinners.

1957: The Davids ceremony moves to Taormina’s Ancient Greek Theater, which will host the ceremony for many more years to come. Federico Fellini wins the best director prize for “Nights of Cabiria.”

1958: Anna Magnani wins best actress for George Cukor’s “Wild Is the Wind.” Marilyn Monroe is feted for her role in “The Prince and the Showgirl,” directed by Laurence Olivier.

Valerio Mastandrea on Abel Ferrara: "An American frame by Abel is different from any other one. Because he moves people to feel cinema inside, you know." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

At Open Roads: New Italian Cinema in New York, first-time director Valerio Mastandrea of Laughing (Ride), starring Chiara Martegiani, told me how he was influenced by Ettore Scola, Mario Monicelli and Aki Kaurismäki. Valerio talks about getting inside the story with the directors he has acted for, including Silvio Soldini's Garibaldi's Lovers (Il Comandante E La Cicogna) opposite Alba Rohrwacher, Marco Bellocchio's Sweet Dreams (Fai Bei Sogni), and Valeria Golino's Euphoria (Euforia) with Riccardo Scamarcio, Jasmine Trinca and Isabella Ferrari.

Valerio is Nico Naldini, confidant to Pier Paolo Pasolini, played by Willem Dafoe in Abel Ferrara's Pasolini.

Valerio Mastandrea on Abel Ferrara: "The way Abel looked at me who observed - that's the difference that he can...

I recently worked with one of my favorite movie poster artists, Akiko Stehrenberger, on a poster for Louis Garrel’s A Faithful Man which, with its lipstick imprints on Garrel’s face, paid accidental homage to the original poster for François Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses. It was Garrel himself who pointed this out—Akiko had never seen the Truffaut poster before and I’d forgotten it—which sent me down a rabbit hole searching for Stolen Kisses posters, of which, it turns out, there is a remarkable variety.Stolen Kisses premiered at the Avignon Film Festival on August 14, 1968 and opened in New York on March 3, 1969, almost ten years after Truffaut’s debut, The 400 Blows, had premiered at Cannes. Stolen Kisses continued the story of 400 Blows’ charming reprobate Antoine Doinel, now all grown up and working as a private detective.The original French poster, featuring an illustration of Jean-Pierre Léaud as Doinel,...

Carlo Giuffre, who is best known for his role as Geppetto in Roberto Benigni’s live-action 2002 adaptation of Pinocchio, died in Rome November 1. He was 89.

Born in Naples, Italy on December 3, 1928, Giuffre was a star of stage and screen. After attending the National Academy of Dramatic Arts Silvio D’Amico he made his stage debut with the company of Eduardo De Filippo. He would continue his work with De Filippo through the ’80s.

Giuffre may have been known for Pinocchio, but his resume includes over 90 films, numerous roles in Italian cult comedies from the ’70s, as well as his celebrated work in the Neopolitan theater scene. On the big screen, he appeared in Mario Monicelli’s 1968 film The Girl With the Pistol alongside Monica Vitti. The film would go on to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film.

He starred in comedies such as La signora e stata violentata!

I haven’t done one of these posts in a while, since April in fact, and back then I talked about how I was resisting moving my movie poster curation over to Instagram from Tumblr. But just a couple of weeks later I bit the bullet and launched Movie Poster of the Day: Instagram edition. I still don’t love Instagram as a platform for posters as much as Tumblr—people tend to look at it on smaller screens for one thing, posters are not so easy to share and re-blog, and I much prefer the look of Tumblr’s archive page which keeps posters at their original ratio. But Instagram is the future, or at least the present, and so I’m now posting in both places, and though Tumblr tells me I have 314,457 followers, versus 1,094 on Instagram, the number of likes I get on each is surprisingly similar...

The Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival has provided some strong picks this year, including French heist comedy The World Is Yours which was rousingly received. The second feature from Romain Gavras (son of Costa-Gavras), who is best known for his music video work with such artists as Mia, Kanye West and Justice, stars Vincent Cassel who appeared in and produced his 2010 debut Our Day Will Come. The collaborators chatted with Deadline this week about the film, riffing on one another and the influence of Italian comedies on this stylish sophomore effort (check out the video above).

The World Is Yours follows François, a small-time drug dealer who wants to call it quits and become the official distributor of the Mr Freeze popsicle brand in North Africa. His dream vanishes when he learns that his mother (Isabelle Adjani) has spent all his life savings. When his boss presents...

Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This December will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.

To sign up for a free two-week trial here.

Monday, January 1

Anatomy of a Murder*: Edition #600

A virtuoso James Stewart plays a small-town Michigan lawyer who takes on a difficult case: the defense of a young army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) accused of murdering a local tavern owner who he believes raped his wife (Lee Remick). Featuring an outstanding supporting cast-with a young George C. Scott as a fiery prosecutor and the legendary attorney Joseph N. Welch as the judge – and an influential score by Duke Ellington, this gripping envelope-pusher was groundbreaking for the frankness of its discussion of sex. But more than anything else, it...

What does a working girl have to do to get ahead, when all she has in her favor is an incredible face, a lavish wardrobe, and a pair of legs to make any executive wolf howl? Loretta Young juggles two egotistical swains, while Joan Blondell shines as an enticing all-pro homewrecker.

Big Business Girl

DVD-r

The Warner Archive Collection

1931 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 74 min. / Street Date September 14, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Loretta Young, Frank Albertson, Ricardo Cortez, Joan Blondell, Frank Darien, Dorothy Christy, Oscar Apfel, Judith Barrett, Mickey Bennett, George ‘Gabby’ Hayes, Virginia Sale.

Cinematography: Sol Polito

Film Editor: Pete Fritch

Written by Robert Lord, story by Patricia Reilly & H.N. Swanson

Produced and Directed by William A. Seiter

Let’s hear it for the Warner Archive Collection’s voluminous vault of early ’30s Warners, MGM and Rko entertainments, which has given us a real education about this era of filmmaking.

After polling critics from around the world for the greatest American films of all-time, BBC has now forged ahead in the attempt to get a consensus on the best comedies of all-time. After polling 253 film critics, including 118 women and 135 men, from 52 countries and six continents a simple, the list of the 100 greatest is now here.

Featuring canonical classics such as Some Like It Hot, Dr. Strangelove, Annie Hall, Duck Soup, Playtime, and more in the top 10, there’s some interesting observations looking at the rest of the list. Toni Erdmann is the most recent inclusion, while the highest Wes Anderson pick is The Royal Tenenbaums. There’s also a healthy dose of Chaplin and Lubitsch with four films each, and the recently departed Jerry Lewis has a pair of inclusions.

Check out the list below (and my ballot) and see more on their official site.

100. (tie) The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese,...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Vittorio de Sica's Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) is playing January 8 - February 6, 2017 in the United States.Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963), winner of the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, is a trio of stories directed by Vittorio De Sica in the omnibus fashion so popular at the time (just the year prior, he had contributed to the similarly structured Boccaccio ‘70, alongside Federico Fellini, Mario Monicelli, and Luchino Visconti). Spearheaded by international super-producer Carlo Ponti—helping to ensure global distribution and award-worthy prestige—the film is, first and foremost, a collaborative compendium of what partially defined the popular perception of its versatile director and its two leads, Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.The first short, “Adelina,” was written by Eduardo De Filippo and Isabella Quarantotti, the second, “Anna,” by Bella Billa, Lorenza Zanuso, and one of Italian neorealism’s founding fathers,...

‘The Salesman’ (Courtesy: Habib Majidi)

By: Carson Blackwelder

Managing Editor

It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but we’re well on our way to seeing how the best foreign language film race will shape up at the Oscars in 2017. Leading the pack of the shortlist is The Salesman from Iran, which could land filmmaker Asghar Farhadi a rare second win in the category. How often do we see someone with more than one win in this worldwide competition?

The shortlist of nine films — more about those here — will, on January 24, be trimmed down to the official five nominees that will eventually face off at the Oscars on February 26. This site’s namesake, The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, lists the current frontrunners as: Germany’s Toni Erdmann (written and directed by Maren Ade), Denmark’s Land of Mine (written and directed by Martin Zandvliet), Sweden’s A...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Mubi is playing General Della Rovere (1959) in the United States September 1 - 30, 2016.For a time, it seemed Roberto Rossellini was ready to leave behind the devastation of World War II, a milieu he as much as anyone helped to indelibly commit to cinematic memory with his Neorealist masterworks. While a traumatized psyche remained in films that followed his trilogy of Rome, Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), and Germany Year Zero (1948), it was revealed via a more subtle manifestation of conflict related angst. Rossellini had moved beyond explicit depictions of the war and its aftermath, even while lingering psychological effects still abound (see his collaborations with Ingrid Bergman). This would change in 1959, with the release of General Della Rovere, Rossellini's first full-fledged wartime film in more than 10 years. While not of the caliber of these earlier titles (not really even in...

Oscar-winner Meryl Streep to also attend this year’s festival.

Oscar-winning actor Tom Tanks is to attend the 11th Rome Film Fesival (Oct 13-26), where he will receive the festival’s lifetime achievement award.

The star of Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump and last year’s Bridge of Spies will also be the subject of a 15-strong retrospective, including Hanks’ work as a director on That Thing You Do! (1996) and Larry Crowne (2011).

“I consider Tom Hanks to be one of the greatest actors of all time,” said the festival’s artistic director Antonio Monda.

“His extraordinary talent and profound humanity make him a classic but always contemporary actor: his films and his performances will never be dated.”

Fellow Oscar-winner Meryl Streep is also set to attend the festival where she will talk about the great Italian actresses who influenced her, including Silvana Mangano.

In addition, screenwriter and director David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross) will be the subject...

“It kind of freed me from a lot of criticisms people have from my other films,” Whit Stillman told us at Sundance earlier this year, speaking about adapting Jane Austen‘s epistolary novel Lady Susan, which became Love & Friendship. “Things can work really well and not be entirely realistic and often they can be better than realism. We love the old James Bond films. They weren’t realistic, but they’re delightful. And the great 30s films. The Awful Truth with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. It’s not realistic; it’s just perfect.”

To celebrate Stillman’s latest feature becoming his most successful yet at the box office, we’re highlighting his 10 favorite films, from a ballot submitted for the most recent Sight & Sound poll. Along with the aforementioned Leo McCarey classic, he includes romantic touchstones from Preston Sturges, Ernst Lubitsh, and François Truffaut. As for his favorite Alfred Hitchcock, he fittingly picks perhaps one of the best scripts he directed, and one not mentioned often enough.

We’ve covered many directors’ favorites, but this is one that perhaps best reflects the style and tone of an artist’s filmography. Check it out below, followed by our discussion of his latest film, if you missed it.

The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey)

Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli)

The Gay Divorcee (Mark Sandrich)

Howards End (James Ivory)

Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (Preston Sturges)

The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch)

Stolen Kisses (François Truffaut)

Stranger than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch)

Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock)

Wagon Master (John Ford)

See more directors’ favorite films.

Above: French grande for Volcano (William Dierterle, Italy, 1950). A few weeks ago, I featured the posters of Anna Karina; now it’s the turn of that other legendary Anna... La Magnani or “La Lupa”, the she-wolf, as she was known. Magnani is currently being fêted at Lincoln Center in an all-celluloid retrospective showing 24 of her films that runs through June 1 before traveling to Chicago, San Francisco, Houston and Columbus.Magnani became a star with her powerhouse performance in Rossellini’s Rome, Open City in 1945, and the indelible image of her chasing down the Nazi soldiers who have taken her resistance-hero husband, is one that seems to have informed her persona throughout her career. No sex-kitten, Magnani was the personification of the great actress, and in her posters she is almost always emoting. She is rarely shown smiling (look at her scowling at Ingrid Bergman—in real life she had good...

Other winners at Brazilian festival include An, Pixadores, The Violin Teacher, Wrestlers.

Runar Runarsson’s Sparrows took the jury prize for best fiction at the São Paulo International Film Festival, which ended Nov 4. It also won the best screenplay prize for its writer/director Runarsson.

Sao Paulo’s New Directors Competition is for first and second features (Sparrows is Runarsson’s second after Volcano.)

Sparrows, an Iceland-Denmark-Croatia co-production, is about an Icelandic teenage boy who has to leave Reykjavik to go back to live in his remote hometown with his estranged father.

Sparrows premiered in Toronto and also won the Golden Shell in San Sebastian.

The jury gave an honorable mention to Jacek Lusinksi’s Polish feature Carte Blanche.

The audience award for best foreign fiction went to Japanese auteur Naomi Kawase’s An and for best foreign documentary to Amir Escandari’s Pixadores (Finland, Denmark, Sweden).

Audience awards for Brazilian films went to Sergio Machado’s The Violin...

Akahige, Amarcord, Aleksandr Nevskij among Venice Classics titles; Bertrand Tavernier selects four films.

Akahige, Amarcord, Aleksandr Nevskij and A Matter of Life and Death are among 21 titles announced today to screen in Venice’s (September 2-12) Classics section, which will reveal further titles later this month.

Director Bertrand Tavernier, who is to receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement award, has selected and will present four films for the Classics strand: Pattes Blances (White Paws) by Jean Grémillion, La Lupa (The Vixen) by Alberto Lattuada, Sonnenstrahl (Ray of Sunshine) by Pál Fejös and A Matter of Life and Death by Michael Powell and Eric Pressburger.

The 21 restorations:

Akahige (Red Beard) by Akira Kurosawa (Japan, 1965, 185’, B&W), restoration by Tōhō Co., Ltd.

Aleksandr Nevskij (Alexander Nevsky) by Sergej Michajlovič Ėjzenštejn (Ussr, 1938, 108’, B&W), restoration by Mosfilm

Amarcord by Federico Fellini (Italy, 1973, 123’, Color) restoration by Cineteca di Bologna with the support of yoox.com and the...

Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano's Samba, stars Omar Sy, Tahar Rahim (Grand Central) and Charlotte Gainsbourg Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

At The Paris Theatre, the greats of the past - Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Charlie Chaplin and Frank Capra - and Italy's recent past - Dino Risi, Ettore Scola and Mario Monicelli - blended with Ken Loach, Michel Gondry and Woody Allen as Samba co-director Olivier Nakache and Omar Sy spoke with me on the red carpet. Sy also starred in Nakache and Eric Toledano's The Intouchables. Omar Sy will soon be seen in John Wells' (of August: Osage County fame) Adam Jones with Bradley Cooper and Alicia Vikander and is filming Ron Howard's Inferno with Tom Hanks, Ben Foster and Felicity Jones.

Samba co-director Olivier Nakache: "We like to discover something about society, but with humor." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Omar's wife, Hélène Sy, was joined by guests Michael Avedon,...

During a directorial career that spanned more than six decades, Viareggio-born Mario Monicelli, who would be 100 years old this week, was renowned as one of the masters of Italian comedy. Although he had been making films for many years before, his fiercely acerbic humor first came to international prominence in the late 1950s with pictures such as the heist film pastiche Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) and Wwi satire The Great War (1959). In this video essay, I focus on the theme of frustrated desire in two Monicelli films from the 1960s: Renzo and Luciana, his contribution to the 1962 anthology film Boccaccio ’70, and the Marcello Mastroianni vehicle Casanova ’70 (1965). >> - Pasquale Iannone...

During a directorial career that spanned more than six decades, Viareggio-born Mario Monicelli, who would be 100 years old this week, was renowned as one of the masters of Italian comedy. Although he had been making films for many years before, his fiercely acerbic humor first came to international prominence in the late 1950s with pictures such as the heist film pastiche Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) and Wwi satire The Great War (1959). In this video essay, I focus on the theme of frustrated desire in two Monicelli films from the 1960s: Renzo and Luciana, his contribution to the 1962 anthology film Boccaccio ’70, and the Marcello Mastroianni vehicle Casanova ’70 (1965). >> - Pasquale Iannone...

Miracolo!: Monicelli’s Exuberant, Digitally Restored Classic

There hasn’t been a performer that’s come close to equaling the vibrant energy of Italian actress Anna Magnani, that furious powerhouse that graced some of the best works of Rossellini, Visconti, Pasolini, and Renoir and swept her way through English language cinema, winning an Oscar for 1955’s The Rose Tattoo. It’s with great pleasure to discover that Mario Monicelli’s forgotten classic The Passionate Thief was digitally restored last year, playing at the 2014 Telluride Film Festival before being treated to a limited theatrical run this Spring at select theaters. Starring Magnani with her frequent stage collaborator, famed comedian Toto, and a nubile Ben Gazzara, the trio wanders through Rome’s streets one lackluster New Year’s Eve as they stumble through a series of escapades.

Based on short stories by famed author Alberto Moravia (The Conformist; Two Women; Contempt...

Anna Magnani in a publicity photo for The Passionate Thief.One thing cinephiles learn fast is just how easy it is, thanks to the limits and whims of distribution, for celebrated films to fade into the background outside their homeland. So one way to begin with Italian director Mario Monicelli is how overshadowed he is today on the world stage. You could say, only half-ironically, that he'd be more famous if only more people had heard of him, or if his global reputation kept up with the one he holds in Italy. Monicelli began filmmaking in the 1930s, was a prolific screenwriter in the 40s, took off as a director in the 50s, and continued making movies without much pause until his death in 2010. In his heyday as a hitmaker, he worked with stars like Anna Magnani, Marcello Mastroianni, Totò, Claudia Cardinale, and Monica Vitti. He once shared a Golden...

Above: Lancelot du Lac (Robert Bresson, France, 1974).

One of France’s most beloved and recognizable poster designers, Raymond Savignac (1907-2002) created some 600 posters over a 50 year career, working almost exclusively in advertising. His simple, whimsical, colorful designs, reminiscent of children’s book illustrations, famously promoted Dunlop, Bic, Perrier, Air France, Cinzano and many other companies with an ineffable charm and wit. As far as I can tell, he designed only ten movie posters during his career, all of which I have gathered here. Five of them were created for the director Yves Robert (best known for The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe, the poster for which was designed by Savignac’s friend and peer Hervé Moran) and three for the later films of Robert Bresson. In fact one of Savignac’s final works was for a retrospective of Bresson in 2000.

A protegé of the great designer A.M.

On the surface, Mario Monicelli's 1960 comedy The Passionate Thief bears similarities to contemporary entries in the one-crazy-night genre. There is a limited-timeframe narrative (one night), a uniting event (New Year's Eve), an episodic structure, and, naturally, lovelorn characters looking to make a connection. Yet what separates The Passionate Thief from its descendants is the sympathy it brings to its central characters, Tortorella (Anna Magnani), a movie extra, and Lello (Ben Gazzara), a thief. Through a circuitous turn of events, Tortorella is ditched by her friends on New Year's Eve in Rome, which means she'll spend the evening with a backup, her old friend Umberto (Totò), an actor and sometime con artist. The problem is, Umberto — unb...

In today's roundup of news and views: Genevieve Yue on the importance of the academy to experimental film, Steve Presence on the Radical Film Network, Slant on Frank Capra's It Happened One Night, Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist and Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960), The Dissolve on Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Nastassja Kinksi and Mario Monicelli in New York and early word on forthcoming work from Clio Barnard and Ulrich Seidl. Plus, while Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman head to television, Paul Schrader's planning a ten-episode Web series. » - David Hudson...

In today's roundup of news and views: Genevieve Yue on the importance of the academy to experimental film, Steve Presence on the Radical Film Network, Slant on Frank Capra's It Happened One Night, Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist and Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960), The Dissolve on Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Nastassja Kinksi and Mario Monicelli in New York and early word on forthcoming work from Clio Barnard and Ulrich Seidl. Plus, while Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman head to television, Paul Schrader's planning a ten-episode Web series. » - David Hudson...

The more ludicrous life gets, the more we need Italian comedy. When the world gets you down, the most surefire cure might be Anna Magnani — in a blond wig and a skintight evening dress dotted with flirty crystal fringe — traipsing from one end of Rome to the next, desperately in search of New Year's Eve fun. She's the shimmery, shimmying center of Mario Monicelli's 1960 farce The Passionate Thief, which has never been released in the United States on VHS or DVD. But che fortuna! It rolls into town, newly restored, for a one-week run on December 5, as part of Film Forum's two-week celebration of the Italian comedy maestro.

Monicelli, along with Dino Risi and Pietro Germi, was one of the foremost figures of the commedia all'italiana, ...

Main programme includes Birdman, Foxcatcher, The Imitation Game and Rosewater.

The Telluride Film Festival (Aug 29 - Sept 1) has revealed the line-up for its 41st edition, packed with films tipped for awards season.

The festival will include 85 features, short films and revivals representing 28 countries, along with special artist tributes, conversations, panels and education programmes.

The main programme includes Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, starring Michael Keaton, which opened the Venice Film Festival to rave reviews yesterday.

The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, The Homesman, directed by Tommy Lee Jones, and Jon Stewart’s directorial debut Rosewater are all generating awards buzz.

There are also several titles that picked up prizes in Cannes earlier this year including Foxcatcher, which won Bennett Miller best director; Russian drama Leviathan, winner of best screenplay; Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, which saw Timothy Spall win best actor; and jury prize winner Mommy from Xavier Dolan.

The 50 Year Argument (d. Martin Scorsese, [link...

I don’t make films myself, but it seems obvious to me there are but two places to learn how to make movies: in the outside world constrained by so-called reality, and in the inside world of the cinema’s darkness, constrained by so-called illusion. Travelogue tales and quotidian reportage being of little interest here, a log for illusionary research and experience, I must duly deliver my film report on the films that came upon me in the darkness of the Melbourne International Film Festival, which ran from July 31 - August 17, and the lessons learned.

Awe Sum

Epic of Everest

So many academics and cinephiles alike seem consternated by Walter Benjamin's paen to the the aura of an original artwork, something squandered, lost, obfuscated, or obliterated in the mechanical reproduction of art in post cards, photographic duplicates, and, of course, cinema. But upon encountering at the festival a restoration...