Author Pasquale Iannone

Russian Ark/Russkiy kovcheg (2002 Russia 99 mins) Prod Co: Egoli Tossell Film/For a Film/The Hermitage Bridge Studio Prod: Andrei Deryabin, Jens Meurer Dir: Aleksandr Sokurov Scr: Anatoli Nikiforov,...

In her 2007 study of the Russian war film, Denise J. Youngblood argues that while Soviet society was in a state of stagnation in the 1970s, the Soviet war film certainly was not: “The thematic gap between...

The most famous work by Siracusa-born Elio Vittorini, Conversations in Sicily (1941) tells the story of Silvestro Ferrauto, a Sicilian living in Milan who makes the trip back to his birthplace in an attempt to...

While he may be most famous outside of Italy for co-directing Federico Fellini’s first feature Luci del varietà (Variety Lights, 1950), Milan-born Alberto Lattuada had a long career spanning more than four...

While there are many examples of individual actors playing multiple roles in the same film – Alec Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1949), Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned...

Between 1961 and 1968, Elio Petri established himself as one of the most distinctive voices of Italian post-neo-realist cinema. His 1961 feature debut L’Assassino is an often-overlooked example of the filmic...

Among the great wave of film debuts in the late 1950s and early 1960s, that of Rome-born director Elio Petri is often overshadowed by those of his contemporaries both in Italy and abroad. Even in terms of...

In her 2007 study of the Russian war film, Denise J. Youngblood argues that while Soviet society was in a state of stagnation in the 1970s, the Soviet war film certainly was not: “The thematic gap between...

Released two years before his international breakthrough Salvatore Giuliano (1962), Francesco Rosi’s I magliari (1959) is the story of immigrant Italian workers seeking their fortune in late Adenauer-era...

As Gian-Piero Brunetta has noted, Francesco Rosi’s Il caso Mattei (The Mattei Affair, 1972) and Lucky Luciano (1973) saw the Neapolitan filmmaker return to the narrative model of his first major success...

Who was my friend? Who was my enemy? How could they be kind to me and at the same time kill others so horribly? What set us apart? A simple foreskin? - Solly Perel in Europa, Europa Among the many...

Released in 1954, Senso was Visconti’s fourth feature and is recognised as a milestone in the director’s career. Not only did it mark a decisive move away from the neo-realism of Ossessione (1942) and La...