Andrea Prodan Movies

Filmed in Tunisia on a budget of 30 million dollars, the five-part, 12-hour miniseries A.D. was the final installment in a historical trilogy which included Moses the Lawgiver and Jesus of Nazareth. Covering the years 30 to 69 A.D., the teleplay, co-written by Anthony Burgess, chronicled the political intrigue which plagued the Roman Empire, with such key players as the emperors Tiberius (James Mason in his final role), Caligula (John McEnery), Claudius (Richard Kiley), and Nero (Anthony Andrews) calling the shots. Meanwhile, the death of Jesus Christ (played by Michael Wilding, son of Elizabeth Taylor) not only sparked a widespread monotheistic religious movement, but also resulted in devastating factionalism amongst the various Jewish sects of the era. Offsetting the true events are a number of fictional subplots, among them the romance between Jewish slave girl Sarah (Amanda Pays) and Roman soldier Valerius (Neil Dickson), and the tempestuous relationship between male and female gladiators, Caleb (Cecil Humphreys) and Corinna (Diana Venora). The huge cast included Ava Gardner, making her TV-movie debut as the scheming Agrippina. The winner of an Emmy award for Best Film Editing, A.D. was broadcast by NBC from March 31 through April 4, 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Recalling François Girard's The Red Violin, Canone Inverso - Making Love is a multi-layered, multi-generational tale of music, fate, and passion. Based on the novel by Paolo Maurensig, the film opens in pre-WWII Europe, where Jeno, a half-Jewish boy, lives in relative poverty with his mother. His father, who abandoned his wife and son, left them with only a rare violin and a canone inverso, a traditional composition written for two instruments. During Jeno's (Hans Matheson) adolescence, his mother dies, and in the wake of her death, he is drawn to Sophie Levy (Melanie Thierry), a married, French Jewish pianist with whom he develops a close relationship. At Sophie's encouragement, Jeno applies for a scholarship to a music conservatory; there, he meets David Blau (Lee Williams), an aristocratic cad who becomes a great influence in Jeno's life. When Jeno is expelled from the school for being Jewish, David quits in protest and takes his friend back to his father's estate. It is at the estate that Jeno discovers a piece of music written by David's father that sparks a revelation about his family heritage -- and his connections to David and Sophie. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

The always innovative Taviani Brothers pay homage to another unique filmmaker, D. W. Griffith, in Good Morning, Babylon. Vincent Spano and Joaquim de Almeida star as Nicola and Andrea Bonnano, the latest in a long line of Tuscany-born cathedral builders. Emigrating to America, the brothers settle in Los Angeles in 1915, even as director Griffith (Charles Dance) is preparing his epic production Intolerance. The boys are hired to help construct the massive sets for the film's Babylonian sequence (hence the title), for no other reason than the fact that Griffith is impressed by Italian craftsmanship. As the film progresses, Nicola and Andrea assimilate to their new surroundings, even launching a romance with a pair of pretty movie extras. On the verge of continuing the family tradition, the boys' ambitions are cut short by events well beyond their control. Still, their past artistic accomplishments, like those of their forebears, survive the ages -- but only on the ethereal silver screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A passionate look at the struggle between the Italian Fascist army of World War II and their anti-Fascist counterparts, Il Partigiano Johnny views its subject matter through the eyes of an English literature student, Johnny (Stefano Dionisi), who has returned from his studies to his hometown in Northern Italy. Upon his return, Johnny discovers that his town has been ravaged by Germans and local Fascists summarily killing deserters, and he decides to join a shoddily organized band of anti-Fascists. Due to the group's poor organization, all the members except Johnny fall victim to their enemies, leaving Johnny to take up with another unit. But as his friends in the new unit are killed one after the other, Johnny's struggle becomes even more intense, and he is able to rely only on his courage and his surviving comrades to pull him through. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

American architect Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy) comes with his young wife Louisa (Chloe Webb) to Rome to supervise an exhibition devoted to Etienne-Louis Boullée, a French architect of the 18th century. Suffering from severe abdominal pains, Stourley doesn't pay much attention to his pregnant wife, and she finds consolation in the arms of suave Caspasian Speckler (Lambert Wilson). Built from rigidly symmetrical images, the film has quite an unusual subject: the belly -- both the sick one of the architect and the pregnant one of his wife, the rounded forms alluding to the spherical constructions designed by Boullée, the architect whose visionary projects seldom materialized. Beautifully shot on location in Rome, this ironic fable wittily examines the issues of artistic creativity. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide

Isabella is the much-loved child of a movie producer, growing up in the 1950s. Key moments in her life are seen as she returns each summer to her family's vacation home on the seaside in Tuscany. The argumentative family has its ups and downs, some of them as a result of successes or reverses in the father's moviemaking career. Practically the only member of the family who doesn't fuss and quarrel all the time is Isabella's mother, her father's second wife. All her siblings are the children of the first wife. Isabella has a "toy" that any movie buff would love to play with: a movieola, a machine usually reserved for film editors who can view the film or films they are working on at their own pace, stopping or reversing the action and running it at any speed. The films she plays on hers indicate what stage she is at in her life, as she grows from an insecure girl to a confident woman. This family drama and coming-of-age story is based on the recollections of filmmaker Fiorella Infascelli, who grew up in the household of her producer father Carlo Infascelli. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide