Francesca Cima Movies
- 2009
Love and danger unexpectedly meet in this offbeat thriller with comic elements from Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Capotondi. Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport) is a young woman who from Eastern Europe who has recently come to live in Turin and wants to find a boyfriend. With this in mind, she signs up for a speed-dating service, and among the men she meets is Guido (Filippo Timi), an ex-cop turned security guard who has been making the rounds of the singles' scene for a while. Sonia likes Guido and he feels the same way about her, passing along his belief that when the hour and minute sides of the clock feature the same numbers, it's a sign of good luck and one can use the occasion to make a wish. However, Guido's luck takes a turn for the worse while Sonia visits the villa where he keeps watch -- a handful of burglars break in and Guido is shot during the altercation, leaving Sonia to make sense of what happened to make her way to safety. La Doppia Ora (aka The Double Hour) was an official selection at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Award-winning filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino (The Family Friend) writes and directs this cinematic portrait of seven-time Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti, whose controversial legacy peaked when he was tried for Mafia ties and subsequently acquitted. A leader with close ties to the Vatican, Andreotti was also tried and acquitted for the murder of an Italian journalist, and remains a senator for life. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Toni Servillo, Anna Bonaiuto, (more)
- 2007
A brilliant detective from Southern Italy investigates the death of a young girl found drowned in a remote lake in the mountains of Friuli in director Andrea Molaioli's dramatic mystery. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Toni Servillo, Nello Mascia, (more)
- 2006
In writer/director Paolo Sorrentino's second feature, The Family Friend (L'Amico di Famiglia), Giacomo Rizzo stars as Geremia de Geremei, a sixtysomething tailor who lives with his mother in a disgusting and decrepit flat. Though wealthy from the money that he has culled via loan-sharking, Geremia is a thoroughly miserable wretch, driven into the throes of destruction by his own incredible selfishness and his obsessive infatuation with a beautiful local girl, Rosalba (Laura Chiatta), whom he meets when asked to assist with her wedding. Geremia agrees, but takes the bride off alone and pressures her into sex, little realizing that he's sowing the seeds of his own downfall. Meanwhile, a bidet supplier attempts to goad Geremia into giving him a massive loan -- an amount that Geremia could never possibly fork over. Throughout the film, Sorrentino packs in numerous surrealistic touches, from the sight of a nun buried up to her neck in sand (accompanied by an aural assault on the soundtrack) to a grotesque glimpse of Rizzo with a potato poultice around his head to the jarring sight of Geremia's village, built by Mussolini on an Italian swampland. In the process, Sorrentino manages to create his own distinct world and thoroughly unforgettable characters. He also pulls off an incredibly difficult feat, by enabling the audience to care about a markedly unpleasant central figure. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Giacomo Rizzo, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, (more)
- 2004
A man, whose life is going nowhere, learns he had an attractive younger woman admirer in this drama from Italy. Titta Di Girolamo (Toni Servillo) is a middle-aged former stockbroker who now makes his living as a minor functionary with the Mafia. A few times a week, Di Girolamo handles bank deposits of large sums of money brought to Italy from the United States. When he's not occupied with that, Di Girolamo's life is barren, with only his occasional heroin use adding drama to his days. Divorced and cut off from his former wife and children, Di Girolamo lives in a hotel, and spends much of his day killing time in their cocktail lounge as he watches barmaid Sofia (Olivia Magnani) at work. When Di Girolamo's more outgoing brother Valerio (Adriano Giannini) stops by for a visit, he goads Di Girolamo into making small talk with Sofia, and soon he makes the unexpected discovery that Sophia has long had an infatuation with him. Le Conseguenze Dell'Amore was screened in competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Toni Servillo, Olivia Magnani, (more)
- 2001
Two men learn firsthand about the cruel twists of fame and fortune in a drama from Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino. In the early '80s, Tony Pisapia (Toni Servillo) and his younger brother, Antonio (Andrea Renzi), have each risen to the peak of their chosen professions. Tony is a nightclub singer who after years of struggle has achieved nationwide fame, and Antonio is a soccer player who becomes a star after scoring the game-winning goal in the European championship match. However, a few years down the line both men are experiencing a sharp reversal of their good fortune. Tony has developed a devastating cocaine addiction, and after it's revealed he's become sexually involved with an underage girl, it doesn't seem likely that the public will ever forgive him. Meanwhile, a leg injury has put an end to Antonio's career as an athlete, and he finds himself starting from zero as he tries to launch a new career in coaching; he faces another personal crisis when his wife, frustrated by Antonio's career decline, leaves him. L'Uomo in Piu was loosely based on the true stories of two Italian celebrities, musician Franco Califano and football star Agostino Di Bartolomei. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Toni Servillo, Andrea Renzi, (more)
