The Wild Eye

Hans is a 2006 release directed by Louis Nero, a young Torinese filmmaker who’s made a handful of low budget films since his 2000 debut, Golem.

Looks like Enzo Castellari’s first film in God knows how long, Caribbean Basterds, has been released in Italy. It appears to have come out on the 20th August, although just where it’s come out is difficult to tell.

Darkness Surrounds Roberta is an Italian and American co-production, shot in 2008 in Italy, which attempts to revive the moribund giallo genre. Unfortunately – and despite the fact that a number of reviews on the internet seem to be suspiciously positive – it doesn’t remotely succeed.

Here’s a new crime drama from Italy, directed by one Carlo Fusci and starring Tony Sperandeo, Antonella Ponziani, Andrea Iervolino and Ciro Petrone (the geeky looking kid who plays with guns on the beach in Gomorrah).  Oh, and also in the cast are a couple of old favourites: Franco Nero and Angelo Infanti! The plot [...]

Here’s a new Italian film that looks like it could be of interest. It’s just come out in Italy this week, and is being shown in 20 cinemas, not a huge amount, but not unusually small for domestic product that isn’t a comedy.

Here’s an interesting sounding new Italian film.  It’s had a somewhat limited release, showing on just 8 screens, and the takings have been rather low so far, but the plot sounds intriguing and the word of mouth around it is generally very positive.  It wouldn’t be the first time an impressive film has fallen by [...]

Daniele Luchetti, who made the acclaimed Mio fratello è figlio unico (My Brother is An Only Child) a few years back, has a new film out called La nostra vita (Our Life).  It stars, among others, two of the more prominent Italian dramatic actors around today, Raoul Bova and Elio Germano, which is probably one [...]

Hey, Claudio Fragasso has a new movie out that’s just hit the cinemas in Italy.  Called Le Ultime 56 Ore, it’s a kind of drama / crime / thriller type thing, and it’s showing on 189 screens; a decent amount for an Italian production (and especially an Italian production that’s not a comedy).  It just [...]

This one sounds interesting, La fisica dell’acqua, directed by Felice Farina.  It’s a drama / thriller, apparently inspired by Hamlet.  The cast includes Claudio Amendola and Stefano Dionisio, both of whom are pretty big names in Italian cinema, and it’s being released into 40 cinemas throughout Italy this weekend (not a huge amount, but still [...]

The Italians seem to have a bit of a thing for football hooligan films at the moment, I guess in the same way that we do here in the UK with productions like The Firm and The Football Factory. Secondo tempo, by novice director Fabio Bastianello, very much falls into this grouping.

Bold, refreshing and unorthodox as ever in her choice of projects, Tilda Swinton takes the lead in this family drama from Italian film-maker Luca Guadagnino, with whom she has worked twice in the past, on The Protagonists (1999) and The Love Factory (2002).

Giorgio Diritti’s The Man Who Will Come has been doing decent business since it’s release three weeks ago

Here’s an interesting sounding new film that’s just been released in Italy, Renato De Maria’s La prima linea, aka The Front Line.  It’s another in the recent series of dramatic crime films with an historical setting and is based on the memoirs of Sergio Sergio, the former “Commander Sirio” of the armed communist organization Prima [...]

There’s an interesting article in Screen Daily about the lack of success being enjoyed by Italian films in the domestic box office at the moment.  Same old reasons are being mooted: lack of strong product, US imports, poor distribution. Anyway, here’s the link:  Local titles vie for market share

There’s an interesting article in Nocturno about a new TV movie that has just been shown on Canale 5. It’s Negli occhi dell’assassino, a giallo, directed by Eduardo Margheriti, son of the great Antonio, who made Black Cobra 3 nearly two decades ago now…

Here’s a tasty sounding number that’s just come out in Italy: La doppia ora (aka The Double Hour), directed by Giuseppe Capotondi and starring Ksenia Rappoport and Filippo Timi.  It’s a thriller / ghost story that’s already getting some rave reports and has been playing at a number of festivals around the world.  This one [...]

New out in Italy, Barbarossa, a costly epic from Renzo Martinelli, who previously directed controversial films like The Stone Merchant and Vajont.  Martinelli’s an iteresting filmmaker, he has a distinct popular sensibility and integrates this with political ideas in much the same way as some of the best directors of the sixties and seventies (I’m [...]

New out this week, Il grande sogno, the new film from Michele Placido, whose Romanzo criminale was one of the better Italo-crime films of recent years.  This sounds like a slightly less interesting production, being another in the line of movies set around the student protests of the late 60s (such as Bertolucci’s The Dreamers). [...]

New out this week in Italy: L’utimo ultras, a football hooligan drama directed by Stefano Calvagna.  This did moderate business over its opening weekend, although to describe it as a success would be over-egging it somewhat (it took €37,000).  The plot goes something like this: John is on the run after killing a young man [...]

Well, after the summer hiatus, a few new Italian films are emerging onto the screen this week, by far the most interesting of which is Franco Gasperoni’s Smile, which has been doing decent business despite being shown on only a moderate number of screens (141, as opposed to the 240 showing the latest Harry Potter [...]