Stefania Sandrelli Movies

Parenthood stirs up a wealth of mixed emotions in this drama from Italy. Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) and Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) are a couple in their late twenties who realize they've crossed the final threshold into adulthood when Giulia discovers she's going to have a baby. Even though Carlo has already settled down, he sees parenthood as the first step towards becoming the sort of middle-class suburbanite he's never respected, and he's not happy about it. Carlo's friends are also having mixed feelings about the onset of maturity: Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti) can't decide if he should go through with his marriage to Livia (Sabrina Impacciatore), Paolo (Claudio Santamaria) is trying to find a way out of going into business with his father, and Alberto (Marco Cocci) seems to be waging a one-man war against monogamy by seducing as many women as possible. Meanwhile, Giulia is having her own misgivings about parenthood, and her mother Anna (Stefania Sandrelli) is torn between happiness for her daughter and dread that she's now old enough to be a grandmother; Anna's malaise isn't eased by the lack of compassion shown by her husband (Luigi Diberti). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Based on a historical novel by Antonio Larreta, Volaverunt imagines a number of romantic misadventures that enlivened the court of King Carlos IV, a Spanish ruler of the early 19th century. As the story opens, the beautiful Duchess of Alba (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) is sharing a coach passing through Andalusia with artist Francisco de Goya (Jorge Perugorria), Prime Minister Manuel de Godey (Jordi Molla), and Pepita Tudo (Penelope Cruz), a peasant girl. Goya and de Godey are obviously charmed by the Duchess's exotic beauty and free-spirited attitude, but the Prime Minister is equally smitten with Pepita. The Prime Minister invites her to the royal court in Madrid, where she becomes his mistress and the subject of several of Goya's paintings. However, Queen Maria Luisa (Stefania Sandrelli) disapproves of de Godey's new love, and instead arranges for him to marry the Countess de Chinchon (Maria Alonso), a plain-Jane member of low-level royalty. The Duchess is upset with de Godey's marriage, as it keeps her away from a collection of royal jewelry she covets. When the Duchess suddenly and mysteriously dies, Goya, de Godey, and Pepita are all murder suspects and must confess where they were and what they were doing at the moments leading up to her death. While the film itself received mixed notices, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon received the Silver Shell as Best Actress at the 1999 San Sebastian Film Festival. The version screened at San Sebastian and several other festivals in the fall of 1999 was director Bigas Luna's original cut; the film's producers announced that the film would be re-edited for international release. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This complexly plotted comedy interweaves snippets from the lives of nearly 40 diverse patrons sitting at 14 tables in a little Italian trattoria. Though the diners come from all levels of society, most are bound by one or two common threads: their engagement in illicit romantic affairs and the fact that they are, for the most part, morally and spiritually bankrupt. The restaurant's unflappable, wise owner Flora (Fanny Ardant) is the only one with any real common sense. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Actor-director Pino Quartullo shot this Italian comedy amid the natural splendors of the Abruzzo National Park. The screenplay, with some situations reminiscent of Bette Midler in Ruthless People (1986), is by Quartullo and Claudio Masenza, based on their play. Stefania Sandrelli repeats her role from the stage production. Former actress Federica Birki (Sandrelli), now reduced to hosting a trash TV gameshow sponsored by a furrier, generates gimmicks for the paparazzi in an effort to get back in the limelight. She's kidnapped by park ranger Marco (Quartullo) and his brother Ruggiero (Ricky Memphis), animal lovers who demand the sponsor close down his fur farm and free the animals. However, Federica's past history of staging stories for press coverage works against her this time, and the abductors' threats are ignored. As the brothers try to heighten her consciousness regarding animals, she begins devising new headline grabbers -- until the corrupt sponsor (Rocco Barbaro) steps in with a different spin. The film includes clips from Sandrelli's Seduced and Abandoned (1963). ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

This beautiful if ponderous soufflé of a film from director Bernardo Bertolucci serves more as an Italian travelogue than a drama. Liv Tyler stars as Lucy Harmon, an American teenager arriving in the lush Tuscan countryside to visit family friends residing there. Lucy visited four years earlier and exchanged a kiss with a handsome boy with whom she hopes to become reacquainted. Lucy's mother has committed suicide since then, and the teenager also hopes to discover the identity of her father, whom her mother hinted was a resident of the villa. Once she arrives, Lucy meets a variety of eccentric visitors, including a dying gay playwright (Jeremy Irons), a sculptor (Donal McCann), an entertainment lawyer (D.W. Moffet), and several others. Lucy has decided to lose her virginity and becomes an object of intense interest to the men of the household, but the suitor she finally selects is not the initial object of her affection. Stealing Beauty boasted an intriguing parallel between actress Tyler's role and her real life. The daughter of a famed rock and roll star, she was brought up believing that her father was someone else, a fact that Bertolucci may have had in mind when writing the story. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

An elite team of plainclothes policeman are assigned to see that a murderous Mafia stoolie and his family make it safely from their Palermo home to the courts in Milan, where he plans to testify, in this Italian thriller. The man they escort is Mafia-attorney Leofonte, who recently had another informer killed for mentioning his name to the police. Now it is his turn to sing, hence the heavy guard consisting of three experienced cops, two female officers and two rookies. They must also insure that his wife and children are protected from retaliation. Unfortunately, despite the caution of the police, things do not go as planned and two of them plus the lawyer's family are slain. Now the lawyer and the others travel in fear that they too will be killed. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The Spanish/Argentinian Of Love and Shadows (De Amor y Sombras) is a fragmentary adaptation of the Isabel Allende novel of the same name. The scene is Chile, during the dictatorial Pinochet regime of the early 1970s. Journalist Jennifer Connelly, insulated from the truth and enjoying the romantic favors of Army officer Camillo Gallardin, prefers to turn a blind eye to the political turmoil all around her. She changes her attitude abruptly when she falls in love with charismatic self-styled anarchist Antonio Banderas. The grim realities depicted in the Allende novel are soft-pedalled in favor of the Connelly-Banderas love story-which, truth to tell, doesn't play very well on screen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this winsome romantic comedy, Andrea has been living a life completely lacking any form of romantic stimulation. He is a middle-aged schoolteacher, and his prospects in that department are dimming. One day, some workmen accidentally knock a hole in his apartment wall, permitting him a good (but concealed) view into the next apartment, which is occupied by an attractive female psychiatrist who is also single and lonely. Instead of doing something straightforward like asking the poor woman out, he jams a video camera into the hole and begins taking his dinners with her image projected on his television. Later, when one of her patients seeks refuge in her apartment, the by-now thoroughly love-struck schoolteacher falls in love with the new person's voice, thinking that it is that of the psychiatrist. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi