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Marco Bellocchio has ruffled some feathers over the years – starting with his feature debut “Fists in the Pocket.”

“I do remember that people were shocked about me making a film, in Italy, about a son killing his mother. They were surprised and I don’t know why. I thought it was a good idea – from a dramatic point of view,” he said at International Film Festival Rotterdam during a talk with festival director Vanja Kaludjercic.

While his colleague Bernardo Bertolucci found himself in even bigger trouble – “They wanted to burn the negative of ‘The Last Tango in Paris,’ which was absurd! I had issues, but not as big as this one” – “Fists in the Pocket” still angered many. Including Luis Buñuel.

“He is perceived as this great surrealist, a revolutionary, but he was a conservative moralist. He couldn’t believe this angry young man was so bitter against his mother.

Italian screenwriter, novelist and poet who formed a successful partnership with the film director Roberto Benigni

Although he was a respected novelist and poet, Vincenzo Cerami, who has died aged 72 after a long illness, was perhaps best known as a screenwriter, thanks to his long partnership with the director Roberto Benigni. The pair co-wrote six films and had their greatest success with La Vita è Bella (Life Is Beautiful, 1997), which starred Benigni as a Jewish internee in a concentration camp, desperately pretending to his young son that it is all a game. The film won three Oscars and had a further four nominations, including for best screenplay. "Knowing Vincenzo was a gift," said Benigni, "because he taught people's hearts to beat."

On their early films together, Cerami was not able to totally sublimate Benigni's excesses as an actor. Nevertheless, Il Piccolo Diavolo (The Little Devil, 1988), Johnny Stecchino (1991) and Il Mostro (The Monster,...