Italian Films at Ames Public Library
Today is 12/2/2008
In Italian with English captions, unless otherwise noted.
8 1/2 (VIDEO FOREIGN 8) 138 min. 1963.
Fellini's autobiographical film about a famous film director who loses his inspiration in the midst of making a film. Much of the story is told in flashback sequences. Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 1963.
Amarcord (DVD FOREIGN AMA) 127 min. 1973.
In this carnivalesque portrait of provincial Italy during the Fascist period, Fellini satirizes his youth and turns daily life into a circus of adolescent desires, male fantasies, rituals, sensations, and emotions. Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 1974.
L'Avventura (DVD FOREIGN L’AV) 145 min. 1960.
This is the story about the search for a girl lost on an island; but gradually the searchers become pre-occupied with their own problems, and the girl is never found.
The Best Man (VIDEO FOREIGN BES) 89 min. 1999.
A bride who detests her groom instantly falls in love with the handsome stranger standing beside him during the ceremony. Francesca scandalizes the wedding party with her flirtations, and as the next century dawns, she may prove to everyone that true love does exist after all.
The Best of Youth (DVD FOREIGN BES) 368 min. 2003.
Originally produced as a miniseries for Italian television and subsequently released as a motion picture. A family epic spanning four decades from the 1960s to the 1990s. Focusing on two brothers, Nicola and Matteo, the film incorporates defining events in Italy’s history, including the hippie movement, the flood of Florence, the Red Brigades, Mafia scandals, kidnapping and political assassinations.
The Bicycle Thief (DVD FOREIGN BIC) 89 min. 1948.
An unemployed man in Rome finds a job as a billposter for which he needs a bicycle. When the bicycle is stolen, he and his son search for the thief in one of the most devastating weeks of their lives. Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 1949.
Big Deal on Madonna Street (VIDEO FOREIGN BIG) 91 min. 1958.
Five men conspire to burglarize a small-time jeweler's safe. When the time comes to carry out the scheme, the men become hopelessly clumsy and have to eventually give up and go home.
Bread and Chocolate (VIDEO FOREIGN BRE) 109 min. 1973.
A farce fashioned around the postwar dilemma of the status and plight of migrant workers from Southern Europe into the northern more prosperous and modern lands.
Bread & Tulips (DVD FOREIGN BRE) 112 min. 2000.
When a harried housewife is accidentally left behind while on a family vacation, she decides to take a holiday of her own in Venice. She becomes charmed by the city and her newfound freedom. She decides to extend her stay, finding a job in a flower shop, renting a room from a wistful waiter, and rediscovering her love for playing the accordion.
Brief Vacation (DVD FOREIGN BRI) 112 min. 1973.
For anyone who's ever yearned for respite from a life of loveless drudgery-or just a break from the daily routine-this is a breath of fresh air. Clara (Florinda Bolkan) is an exhausted factory worker in Milan, unappreciated by her family and suffering from the onset of tuberculosis. Sent to a sanitarium in the Italian Alps for rest and treatment, she's befriended by wealthy and working-class patients alike, and falls in love with a charming Frenchman (Daniel Quenaud) who promises everything she's denied by her selfish, jealous husband.
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