Emilio Cigoli Movies

In this French drama, a woman preparing to take her vows to become a nun must write a letter describing her past indiscretions. She goes to a priest to confess that she had killed her former lover when she discovered that he had been sleeping with her mother. Her enraged mother gave her two options: she could become a nun, or go to prison. She chose the former, but when the convent refuses to take her, everything falls apart. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Domenica D'Agosto was the first feature-length effort from Italian documentary filmmaker Luciano Emmeri. The film keeps within the accepted guidelines of Italian neorealism, albeit with a surfeit of warmth and humor. Emmeri details a typical midsummer Sunday in a seaside resort. A cast of professional actors mingles with carefully chosen nonprofessionals to illustrate a series of perceptive vignettes about big-city vacationers. Such is the consummate skill of the director and his screenwriters (including the ubiquitous Cesare Zavattini) that it's difficult for the audience to determine where the scripted scenes end and the "real" scenes begin. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Vittorio DeSica's Shoeshine (Sciuscia) is a must-see example of Italian neorealist cinema, ranking with such other neorealist classics as DeSica's Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Umberto D. (1952) and Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945). Using nonprofessional actors, DeSica and co-screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, also one of neorealism's leading figures, paint an uncompromising picture of the lives of Italian street children abandoned by their parents at the end of World War II. The film concentrates on two such children, Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smerdoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi). With no one else to turn to, the boys form a solid friendship, as well as a "corporation" of sorts: they eke out a living shining the boots of American GIs. The boys' hope for a rosier future is manifested in their dreams of owning a beautiful white horse. This, along with all their other aspirations, is eradicated when the boys are inadvertently shipped off to a reformatory. A failure in Italy (director DeSica noted that postwar Italian audiences preferred the glossy escapism emanating from Hollywood), Shoeshine was a huge success worldwide, as well as the winner of a special Academy Awards. Like Bicycle Thieves, it combines DeSica's frequent focus on children with his emphasis on post-war social problems. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on the book by Ayn Rand, this Italian film follows the struggles of a young Russian woman, Kira Argounova (Alida Valli), who must become involved with a member of the Soviet secret police, even though she is repulsed by everything he stands for. The relationship she has with this man provides her with the money she needs to support her ill lover (Rossano Brazzi). This movie was originally released as two separate films, Noi Vivi and Addio Kira, and is in Italian with English subtitles. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi