Paolo DeVita Movies

Director Roland Emmerich takes a break from his long string of big-budget disaster films with Anonymous, a historical drama that suggests Shakespeare was a fraud. Edward de Vere (Rhys Ifans) is an aristocrat who yearns to write poetry and plays, but due to social and political constraints, he is forced to use a front for his political-minded works because they subtly encourage Queen Elizabeth to alter her plan for succession in a way that is in direct opposition to her most-trusted political advisers. When drunken, illiterate, fame-hungry actor William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall) passes off the plays as his own, de Vere finds his man, but eventually he is blackmailed when the morally dubious thespian wants more and more. Anonymous screened at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Controversial Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berluscoi is just one of the targets of writer and director Nanni Moretti's satiric focus in this sharp comedy-drama. In the 1970's, Bruno (Silvio Orlando) was one of Italy's most daring and best-respected filmmakers, while his wife Paola (Margherita Buy) was a leading box-office star. However, come the new millennium, things are a whole lot different for Bruno -- Paola is divorcing him, his production company is on the verge of bankruptcy, and he can't get a new project off the ground. When Teresa (Jasmine Trinca), a young woman down on her luck, approaches Bruno with a script, he agrees to take on the project, even though he hasn't read it and doesn't know how he'll raise the money. Bruno discovers he's put himself in hot water when he reads the screenplay and discovers it's a frontal assault on Silvio Berluscoi that doesn't shy away from allegations of his connection to organized crime, tax evasion, bribery and influence peddling. While Italian firms won't dare touch the project, Bruno discovers a Polish financier (Jerzy Stuhr) who will put up the money, but under one condition -- Bruno has to persuade box-office idol Marco Pulici (Michele Placidio) to play Berluscoi. Il Caimano (aka The Caiman) received its North American premier at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Based on a true story, L'Ultima Lezione is a display of the rising unease following the yet unsolved disappearance of Federico Caffe (Roberto Herlitzka), an influential and celebrated professor of Economic Theory for the past 30 years. The 73-year-old mysteriously left his home on April 14, 1987, without his passport, glasses, watch, or provisions, never to be heard from again. Along with a group of his core students, the police searched far and wide, proposing a series of unlikely possibilities which ranged from suicide to kidnap by a terrorist network, and even an unpublicized decision to join a monastery. None of these theories led to any supporting evidence. Meanwhile, the fictional character of Andrea Collati (Ignazio Oliva), who left Caffe's doctoral program in order to take a job at a prestigious financial institution, has been ordered to fudge a report on a public stock proposal. Never having been put in a position such as this, she looks to flashbacks of Caffe for guidance. L'Ultima Lezione (The Final Lesson) is writer/director Fabio Rosi's debut feature. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

A former terrorist from the early 1970s, who has totally suppressed the memory of the night in which she almost executed a man; encounters her intended victim a few years after the crime was committed. He, who wound up with a bullet lodged in his skull has never forgotten her, and so begins a complex, compelling Italian psychological drama that does not provide any simplistic answers to a situation that is difficult for both parties. The woman, Lisa Venturi was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to serve a 30-year sentence. Though she has only been in prison 12 years, she is given a chance to do work release during the day. It is on her way to work that she runs into Professor Sajevo, the man she tried to kill. He shows some interest in her, but she has no idea why. Soon the meetings become a strange unspoken ritual. Every day on her way to work, he manages to block her way. Finally she begins thinking he wants to court her and so begins fabricating a perfectly normal life. He meekly seems to buy every word, but eventually, he tells her the truth. Lisa is so deeply upset at having to face what she so carefully tried to hide from herself that she gives up her job and returns to the prison so she will not have to face him. Unfortunately, it is unavoidable, as by then both of them are pulled inexorably towards more communication about the situation and the ideology that threw them together in the first place. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Acclaimed Belgian novelist Jean-Philippe Toussaint drew attention to his directorial talents in 1990 with a remarkable satire on modern life, Monsieur. His third feature, La Patinoire, is about a film director who is shooting a highly symbolic film called 'Dolores' at an ice rink. He has hired a Lithuanian ice hockey team with which he is having enormous communication problems. His actors all have inflated egos, his film crew is made up of fools, and there is a politician on his back. But he must finish the film, no matter what, in time for the Venice Film Festival. A black comedy which is applicable to all absurd situations of life, but particularly those associated with the film industry, La Patinoire is a clever satire from beginning to end, including its title. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi