Ugo Chiti Movies

Affable Neapolitan fishmonger Luciano (Aniello Arena) teams with his wife to pull off a series of small-yet-profitable scams, but finds his perception of life starting to shift after being convinced by his family to try out for the hit reality game show Big Brother. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

This light and gentle domestic comedy from Italian director Vincenzo Salemme concerns Arturo Cremisi (Salemme), a television actor in his mid-forties whose most prominent role involves portraying a husband and father separated from his wife on a popular series. His life changes drastically when his path intersects with that of Mirko, an orphan boy unshakably convinced that Arturo's character on television is his real dad. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

An ailing woman who has lost her husband helps her younger caregiver find hers in this rama from Italy. Elderly Gemma (Ilaria Occhini) is in poor health and has found herself alone for the first time in years after the death of her husband. Gemma lives in Florence, while her son Enrico (Corso Salani) lives and works in Trieste; he can't get out to see her as often as she'd like and he worries about her, so he hires Angela (Dorotheea Petre), a woman from Romania, to look after Gemma. At first, Gemma makes no secret of the fact she doesn't trust Angela and would prefer that her son come to Florence and keep an eye on her; it doesn't help that Gemma's poor health makes her a difficult patient to look after. But in time Gemma develops a genuine respect for Angela and admires her close relationship with her husband Adrian (Vlad Ivanov), who is still in Romania but stays in touch with phone calls nearly every day. After Angela doesn't hear from Adrian for two weeks, she's convinced that something is wrong and she wants to go home; Gemma isn't in a position to look after herself but she's sympathetic to Angela's dilemma, so Gemma joins Angela as she goes back to Romania in search of Adrian. Mer Nero (aka Black Sea) was the first feature film from writer and director Federico Bondi. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Director Giovanni Veronesi interweaves four tales of family tragedy, ill-fated love affairs, eternal passion, and fleeting relationships in a humorous, romantic, and moving look at the lasting effect of love and the human condition. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Noted Italian comic Francesco Nuti directs and stars in this oddball romantic comedy about a man who falls for his girlfriend's lesbian lover. Divorced, middle-aged, and unattached, Dado (Nuti) is bowled over when he meets wild gal Francesca (Agathe de la Fontaine), who wrecks his car, beds him, and then dumps him by scrawling an AIDS threat on his bathroom mirror. Utterly crushed, Dado mopes about for days until he meets beautiful engineer Andrea (Francesca Neri) who warns him to stay away from her girlfriend, Francesca. Dado and Andrea start a no-holds-barred struggle for her heart until, tired of them both, Francesca leaves town. Soon the passions of animosity between Andrea and Dado turn into the passions of romance. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Italy's favorite dysfunctional family returns to their small-town home in Tuscany to mourn the passing of Adele, who watches over the mournful festivities as the family pays their respects and prepares for her funeral. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Off-beat is a description scarcely adequate to describe this highly-original Italian comedy-drama that takes place within a woman's womb and centers on the conversations between two developing fraternal twins, known only as Big Guy and Little Guy. The fetuses are played by long-haired grown men who wear beads and have are strategically covered by their umbilical cords. Each of the embryos has a distinct personality complete with built in fears of the strange world awaiting them outside. Big Guy is the aggressive brute who resents having to share his watery home with Little Guy, the intellectual one. Little Guy is small enough to climb up into his mother's fallopian tubes where a peephole allows him some view of the world. He can even watch TV. Armed with such information, he visits Big Guy and together they talk about it all. Sometimes when they sleep, both have fantastic dreams of meeting their beautiful mother. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A neurotic and unhappily married man falls in love with his transvestite cousin in this quirky Italian comedy. Leo is an obsessive and unhappy man. He is married to Simona and the two are miserable. He suffers many psychosomatic ailments and real phobias, such as an allergic reaction to cheese fumes, and a dread of being locked in a bathroom. When accidently does lock himself in a public bathroom, he becomes hysterical until he is rescued by a class call-girl Giulia. She had been watching him from a distance. She takes the unconscious Leo home. When Leo awakens he discovers that Giulia is really his cousin and former playmate Gioulio who admits to always having loved Leo. Initially Leo rejects Giulia's new life style and shrugs her off as a confused man, but gradually he comes to love her in every way. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Poor Ivo is anything but a genius, an idiot savant with a phenomenal ability with numbers and abstract figures, yes, but definitely not a genius. An orphan since childhood, he has spent most of his life in an institution. By the time he is finally released, Ivo is a grown man. He returns to his home village and finds it empty. Still he decides to stay. Bored, he begins painting complex black and white puzzles all over the town. Circumstance eventually leads him to fall in love and end up living in a sort of communal half-way house. This gentle Italian comedy chronicles his exploits there. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

For many years, the Italian Communist party had a significant cachet as one of the few such organizations to survive for many decades largely independent of the influence of China and Russia's versions of communism. It had loyal and even fervent support from people in all walks of Italian life. However, times change, and after the end of the Cold War, the party was renamed the "Democratic Left" and began espousing considerably more centrist policies. This film takes place at a large rally for the newly reorganized party, where old and new feuds and resentments color the interactions of the many types of people present. In particular, a visiting politician encounters the harsh feelings of a young-ish woman who is also an old-guard leftist who deeply resents the changes in the party's direction. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Francesco (Francesco Nuti) has had better days (his lover just dumped him) but the 24 hours in this day are still much like those in any other -- he messes up more than once, and when not fouling up on his own, there is always an outside agent to do it for him. At work, he has a go-around with a machine in which the machine definitely seems to have the upper hand, and yet he still manages to cultivate his friendships with young and old -- "old" in this case being Magnifico (Massimo Sarchielli), someone willing to listen to his remembrances of his father, missing for several years now. At the end of the day, just as Francesco thinks he can settle down with his favorite prostitute, he has miscalculated again, and the night is not to be spent as he had blissfully hoped. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi