Giorgio Gasparini

La Chimera

Just out of jail, rumpled English archaeologist Arthur reconnects with his wayward crew of tombaroli accomplices – a happy-go-lucky collective of itinerant grave-robbers who survive by looting Etruscan tombs and fencing the ancient treasures they dig up.

Princess

Princess is a young illegal immigrant from Nigeria who sells her body on the outskirts of a big city. Like an Amazon on the hunt, protected by her friends, she moves through a pinewood that stretches as far as the sea, an enchanted forest in which to find refuge, hide away from life and earn her daily bread. Every day, in order to survive, Princess has to steer clear of dangers and sentiments, follow the scent of money and dupe her clients. Her life is a succession of days that are always the same, one joins to another, without a break. Until one day, driven by an inner force to break the shackles of cynicism and exploitation, she quarrels with the friends with whom she shares the street and meets a man who wants to save her, but first she will have to save herself.

Le Pupille

During WWII, in the days leading up to Christmas, a woman arrives at an Italian Catholic boarding school for orphaned girls with a large cake and a plea for them to pray for her boyfriend, who is having an affair.

Swing Ride

Benedetta, an obese fifteen-year-old yearning for attention, lives in a tawdry province in the south of Italy, emblematic of her inner landscape where everything could be and yet is not. She falls in love with Armando, aka Amanda, a young transvestite who is attracted to the young girl's innocence and begins an unhealthy relationship of mutual dependence with her. Amanda runs a carousel at the fair across the street from Benedetta's house, and the girl is magnetically drawn to this colorful and exciting world. But Amanda not only runs the carousel, she's also a call boy and sells drugs. Between intoxication and family rebellion and the discovery of sex - a great disappointment - she completes her rite of passage into adulthood.

Bad Tales

In a small suburb on the outskirts of Rome, the cheerful heat of summer camouflages a stifling atmosphere of alienation. From a distance, the families seem normal, but it’s an illusion: in the houses, courtyards and gardens, silence shrouds the subtle sadism of the fathers, the passivity of the mothers and the guilty indifference of adults. But it’s the desperation and repressed rage of the children that will explode and cut through this grotesque façade, with devastating consequences for the entire community.

Ordinary Justice

While a trial involving murder, manslaughter and armed robbery is being conducted inside the courtroom, the two daughters of the accused are sentenced to wait outside in the hallway.

The Love Europe Project

The Love Europe Project is a collection of 9 short films by various directors from different European countries.

Happy as Lazzaro

Purehearted teen Lazzaro is content living as a sharecropper in rural Italy, but an unlikely friendship with the marquise’s son will change his world.

The Intruder

Naples. Present day. Giovanna, a combative 60-year-old social worker on the frontline of the daily war against pervasive criminality, is confronted, like a modern Antigone, with a moral dilemma that threatens to destroy her work and her life. Giovanna runs an after-school centre that takes care of underprivileged children; a grassroots alternative to the mafia dominance of the city. But one day, young Maria, wife of a ruthless Camorra criminal on the run, and her two children take refuge at the centre, and ask Giovanna for protection.

Pure Hearts

Agnese and Stefano are profoundly different. She is only seventeen, lives with her mother – a harsh and devoted woman – is a regular church-goer and is about to take a vow of chastity to last until marriage. He is twenty-five, has a violent temper and a difficult past behind. He works as a warden in a car park that borders a Roma camp. Their unexpected meeting engenders a true sentiment, made of little stolen moments and mutual help.

Pawn Street

In Torino, a bittersweet crowd is bringing its own belongings to a pawn shop, waiting for a ransom or the final auction. Between the thousands of faces that tell the human inventory of the crisis, three stories intertwine unconsciously in the thin line of moral debt. Sandra, a young trans, in order to escape her past sells her fur coat. Her gaze will cross Stefano’s, a novice who just started working at the bank, and who drags her towards a tender obsession. Michele, a retired porter, asks for a loan to a family member, who will turn out to be fatally the wrong person to ask a favour from.

The Nest

Cora is a 19-year-old woman who has recently returned home for a gap year.  Her father is the mayor of Bucco, a town whose livelihood depends on the tourism of Christians who believe in the apparitions of the Virgin Mary.  While busy organizing the celebration of the Virgin of Bucco, an annual event that attracts numerous pilgrims, Cora notices a mysterious man whose presence will slowly rupture the tranquility of the town and her nascent adulthood.

Fräulein - A Winter’s Tale

As a solar storm unfolds, causing power surges and blackouts, a storm of emotions rages within Regina, a spinster referred to as Fräulein, when a childlike sexagenarian checks into her hotel. What should be one night becomes a stormy coexistence all its own.

Fräulein - A Winter’s Tale

As a solar storm unfolds, causing power surges and blackouts, a storm of emotions rages within Regina, a spinster referred to as Fräulein, when a childlike sexagenarian checks into her hotel. What should be one night becomes a stormy coexistence all its own.

De Djess

The ninth short film of the Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales series reflects Alice Rohrwacher’s attention to the surreal world of ordinariness and exceptions.

Donkey Flies

Maurizio, tiny, reckless and full of energy, grew up in the poorest outskirts of Reggio Calabria, he argues with spiteful hens, speaks to wise donkeys and fights for his dream: to play the snare drum in the neighbourhood band.

Sworn Virgin

Years after declaring her eternal virginity and opting to live life as a man in the mountains of Albania, Hana looks to return to living as a woman as she settles into a new existence in modern-day Milan.

The Wonders

Gelsomina’s family works according to some special rules. First of all, Gelsomina, at twelve years of age, is head of the family and her three younger sisters must obey her: sleep when she tells them to and work under her watchful eye. But the world, the outside, mustn’t know anything about their rules, and must be kept away from them. They must learn to disguise themselves.

A Five Star Life

Single and middle-aged, beautiful Irene (Margarita Buy) is wholly devoted to her job as an inspector of luxury hotels. Constantly on the road, she indulges in expensive pleasures at impeccable resorts, but always incognito and alone, soon escaping to the next exotic destination with her checklist and laptop in tow. When her best friend and ex, Andrea (Stefano Accorsi), who has always been a source of emotional support, suddenly becomes unavailable, Irene is thrown into a deep existential crisis. "Luxury is a form of deceit," she is told by a fellow traveller in the fog of a steam room, and thus begins Irene's quest to bring more meaning into her life.

A Liberal Passion

When an uncompromising idealist and rich, arrogant heir cross paths, their contrasting beliefs begin to shift when they fall for each other.

Il rosso e il blu

The story of a teacher and his students, set in an Italian high school.

The Interval

A boy and a girl are locked in an enormous abandoned building in a rundown area. She is a prisoner and the local clan leader has forced him to be her warder. Despite their youth, both of them have grown up too fast. Veronica acts like a mature and open-minded woman whilst Salvatore is like a man who wants to hold on to his job and lead a quiet life. Thus, when faced with the violence of this incarceration, the two young people have different reactions: Veronica is restless and rebellious; Salvatore is more remissive and accommodating, either out of fear or realism. They are both victims but it is almost as though each blames the other for their reclusion. However, as the hours go by, their mutual hostility is transformed into an inevitable intimacy, consisting of reciprocal discoveries and confessions. Between the walls of that isolated and frightening place, Veronica and Salvatore fi nd a way to rekindle those adolescent dreams and ideas put aside too soon.

Corpo Celeste

After growing up in Switzerland, 13-year-old Marta returns to a city in southern Italy with her mother and older sister. Independent and inquisitive, she joins a catechism class at a local church. However, the games and religious pop songs she encounters there do not nearly satisfy her interest in faith. Struggling to find her place, Marta pushes the boundaries of the class, the priest, and the church.

Raise Your Head

Mero, a skilled shipyard worker, is a single father. His son Lorenzo, born from a relationship with an Albanian girl, is his only reason for living. The father dreams that the boy will become a champion boxer, to make up for his own anonymous career as an amateur in the ring. This is why he puts him through a tough training program, teaching him day after day to throw punches and protect himself from life's low blows. The balance of this relationship is disturbed by the return of Lorenzo's mother Denisa and by the son's meeting with young Ana. Mero's trials are not over and he must face up to pain, his prejudices and the remoteness of Italy's north east.

Signorina Effe

A white and a blue collar worker fall in love during the 1980 strike at FIAT that marked the end for labor movement in Italy.

Don't Think About It

Still an unsuccessful punk rock musician at 36, Stefano returns to his hometown in the countryside to help with his family's business.

Salty Air

An embittered penitentiary social worker receives an unwelcome blast from the past when the case file of his father, a convicted murderer who has been emotionally broken by prison life, lands on his desk.

Forget You Not

Rome, 1947. The war is over but in the eternal city is still open and obvious wounds of the conflict. In the maternity ward of a hospital, nine women are waiting to give birth...

Days

Bank manager Claudio is 35 and gay, and he's been HIV-positive for a decade. He's managing the illness, but his strict regimen of medicine has turned him almost robotic. His relationship with partner Dario has also grown stale. When Claudio reunites with the mysterious Andrea, an old flame, the dullness of routine is suddenly broken. But soon, Andrea's romantic view of life tempts Claudio to engage in dangerous unprotected sex again.

The Scent of the Night

A former policeman turns full-time robber and goes on a downward spiral of crime in 1970s Rome.

Notes of Love

A woman suffering from compulsive-type psychological problems falls for an older divorced neighbour. Will her love be returned? A slow story of confusion and loneliness.