Simone Gattoni

Maria

Maria Callas, the world's greatest opera singer, lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, as she confronts her identity and life.

Portrait of a Certain Orient

At the end of the 1940s, Lebanon is sliding towards a devastating conflict. Catholic siblings Emilie and Emir decide to leave for Brazil. Aboard the ship to their new home, Emilie falls in love with Omar, a Muslim merchant. For an enraged and jealous Emir, the relationship is intolerable. As the story unfolds against the backdrop of the majestic rainforest, Emir’s actions and the choice that Emilie subsequently makes lead to disastrous consequences.

The Time It Takes

A father and a daughter. Cinema and life. The childhood that seems perfect and then become great by getting everything wrong. Fall and get up, start again, grow old, become fragile, let go but never get lost. The time it takes to save yourself.

Battlefield

These are the years of the First World War and Dr. Stefano Zorzi spends his days in the Exemption Clinic in a large city of Northern Italy, where he not only takes care of soldiers who arrive from the massacre of the front, but also he fights simulation and self-harm of those who hope to be dispensed, by sending them before the Military Court. If Stefano, in fact, does his utmost to heal soldiers and send them back to fight, Dr. Giulio Farradio makes them ill, or helps them to self-injure seriously enough to be exonerated. The two doctors, who went to university together and were great friends, they not only (secretly) challenge each other on a professional level, but also on the sentimental one: they are both linked to Anna, a courageous nurse with a strong character. But when the great ‘Spanish’ fever epidemic arrived in 1918, the time for love, politics and science ends up getting confused dangerously...

If I May - Chapter II

Over the course of a day, Fausto, invincible in his inertia, watches a paradoxical procession of visitors pass by: the mellifluous parish priest of the town; a mysterious man with his absurd ghost-themed business idea; the captain of the Carabinieri who proposes a shotgun wedding to his daughter, who has become pregnant by a stranger. Finally, late at night, a couple of thieves enter the house with Barbara's complicity. Fausto surprises them, impassive and bored as always, and reassures them: there is nothing left, neither gold nor paintings, everything has been sold. The three do nothing but chat until the sun rises, when the thieves leave and Barbara puts the coffee on the fire.

The Life Apart

In Vicenza, a beautiful Italian art city, a young wealthy couple joyfully welcomes the birth of a long-awaited daughter in the early 1980s. But the child’s face is disfigured by a red birthmark that covers half her face. This spot haunts the mother to the point that she rejects her responsibilities as a mother. The child’s aunt, a famous concert pianist, takes over her education, thus discovering her exceptional musical talent.

Volare

One day, Annabì decides it’s enough. Her whole life has been affected by her fear of flying and so has her career. She is a successful actress but has turned down many roles abroad because flying is an insurmountable obstacle for her. Now, her daughter Serena has decided to study in California. Obsessed with the idea of not being a good mother, Annabì forces herself to cross the dreaded threshold of Fiumicino airport and to head to a secluded area where a course will take place. Other mysterious travelers are heading to the same place, all of them with their own baggage of fears and willing to overcome their aerophobia.

Lost Love

In Nazi-occupied France, the heart of a young nun is torn between God and Love.

Kidnapped

The story of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy living in Bologna, Italy, who in 1858, after being secretly baptized, was forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian. His parents’ struggle to free their son became part of a larger political battle that pitted the papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification.

Rosebush Pruning

In the claustrophobic confines of a rural estate, a family struggles with their tangled web of hereditary diseases. Among them is Alessandro, a young man with epilepsy and paranoid tendencies. Feeling burdened by the numerous afflictions that plague his family, he decides to murder them all.

I Told You So

In Rome, during a January weekend a sudden heatwave arrives. The sun is initially pleasant, but the heat quickly escalates to a frightening degree, resulting in people and animals losing self-control.

Lord of the Ants

Based on true events of the late 60s in Italy, poet, playwright and myrmecologist Aldo Braibanti is prosecuted and sentenced to prison for the love he shares with his barely-of-age pupil and friend, Ettore. Amidst a chorus of voices of accusers, supporters and a largely hypocritical public, a single committed journalist takes on the task of piecing together the truth, between secrecy and desire, facing suspicion and censorship in the process.

Esterno Notte (part II)

The 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists

Esterno Notte (part I)

The 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists

Daughters

Martha and Betty have known each other for twenty years and they have decided to breakthrough. But while Martha realizes that her father has only faked his death wish in order to see the great love of his life again on Lake Maggiore, Betty mourns her stepfather Ernesto, who supposedly died years ago.

If I May

A man wanders the streets of a small provincial town, obsessed by the idea of meddling in the lives of others.

Marx Can Wait

"Marx can wait" was something Camillo Bellocchio said to his twin Marco the last time they met before the former died at a young age in the heated days of 1968. This documentary is dedicated to his memory.

Tommaso

Tommaso is an American expat film director living in Rome with his young wife and their daughter. Disoriented by his past misgivings and subsequent unexpected blows to his self-esteem, Tommaso wades through this late chapter of his life with an increasingly impaired grasp on reality as he prepares for his next film.

The Traitor

Palermo, Sicily, 1980. Mafia member Tommaso Buscetta decides to move to Brazil with his family fleeing the constant war between the different clans of the criminal organization. But when, after living several misfortunes, he is forced to return to Italy, he makes a bold decision that will change his life and the destiny of Cosa Nostra forever.

Frontiera

On a ferry travelling towards Lampedusa, we find a teenager on his first day of work as a gravedigger and a boy on his first mission as a diver. They do not know each other, but when they will set foot on the island, both their lives will change forever: one has to retrieve the bodies of drowned shipwreck victims, the other one has to bury them. A sort of dance between life and death, innocence and its loss.

The Fight

It is a sunny day on the river Trebbia. In the distance a patrol of German soldiers is approaching : they are nazis, guns blazing. It seems like they are chasing somebody. Tonino is the fugitive, a partisan with nothing left to do but dive into the river. This river will bring him to his real life.

All for a Rose

Elena has just turned 18 and this is her first day working in a coffee bar in Bobbio, a town in the north of Italy. It's summer and the coffee bar is very busy. The first day at work is a chance for Elena to meet lots of different people. Each person has a different story to tell - not just in words but also through simple gestures and actions. These characters can sometimes be quite odd and reflect the countless nuances of the human soul.

Blood of My Blood

Northern Italy, 17th century. In a monastery, a nun accused of witchcraft tries to seduce a young confessor who refuses to yield to his searing temptation.

Fragments

Fragments of a collaboration between director Franco Piavoli (The Blue Planet, The First Breath of Wind) and students of the Laboratory Making Cinema founded by Marco Bellocchio.