Franco Scaldati Movies
A child born under religious persecution grows into a man who questions the foundations of faith in director Pasquale Scimeca's thought-provoking, faith-based drama. The year is 1492 and Castilian queen Isabel has ordered all Jews and Muslims out of Spain. When a boy named Joshua (Leonardo Cesare Abude) is born into the religious strife and is predicted by elder Don Issac (Toni Bertorelli) to be the new Messiah, Issac joins his exiled people in order to ensure safe passage for the boy. As the boy grows into a young man and follows his family to Naples, his questions about Jesus garner a wide variety of responses from his fellow Jewish and Muslim travelers. When the safe haven of Naples turns inhospitable and Joshua's family is forced to move on to Sicily, his subsequent fascination with Catholic rituals raises the ire of the local clergy. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 2003
The Italian filmmaking team of Daniele Cipri and Franco Maresco is responsible for the satirical comedy Return of Cagliostro, set in Palermo during the late '40s. Luigi Maria Burruano and Franco Scaldati play a pair of brothers who decide to start up a film production company called Trinacria Films with money from corrupt politicians and religious leaders. The brothers don't know much about filmmaking, so they decide to do a remake of a popular adventure film about a magician named Cagliostro. They get American star Erroll Douglas (Robert Englund, also known as Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street) to play the lead role. With an incompetent director (Pietro Giordano) and serious language barriers, the film's production results in catastrophe. Return of Cagliostro was shown in the Upstream program of the 2003 Venice Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Englund, Luigi Maria Burruano, (more)
This Italian film was released in 1995 and slowly made its way around the world; its English title is The Star Maker. Like the Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso by the same writer-director, Guiseppe Tornatore, it's drenched in the filmmaker's love for cinema. In Sicily in the early 1950s, Joe Morelli (Sergio Castellitto) is a con man who travels by truck from village to village posing as a film company representative. For a fee, he offers the rubes screen tests, using passages from a script of Gone with the Wind and encouraging their hopes with lines such as "Success awaits you!" Morelli's camera brings out people's hidden sides, including a soldier's war trauma, a woman's protests at being accused of prostitution, and a policeman who recites poetry. Begging for a chance at the stardom Morelli purportedly offers, Beata (Tiziana Lodato) asks Morelli to take her with him. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- 1988
This somber docudrama takes place in the squalid ghetto known as Zen 2. Over 25,000 people live in the 3-year-old makeshift city under deplorable conditions where there are open sewers and undrinkable water. The only available electricity is stolen from power lines, as children are constantly sickened by the pollution of the air and water. The main industry consists of violent crime, drug dealing, prostitution, and robbery. Sister Chiara (Consuelo Lupo) and Father Don Luigi (Franco Scaldati) seem to be the only ones who try to save the children by encouraging them to play sports instead of snatching purses and dealing drugs. They also take the kids on trips to show them there are other places than the notorious ghetto where they live their miserable lives. During filming of ZEN - Zona Espansione Nord, local authorities refused to accompany the film crew into the area. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Consuelo Lupo, Franco Scaldati, (more)
Italy's fraternal filmmaking team of Paolo and Vittorio Taviani whip up another multistoried slice of life in Kaos. "Life," in this case, is seen from the peculiar perspective of author Luigi Pirandello, four of whose pieces are herein adapted. "The Other Son" finds Margarita Lozano making the best of her rocky relationship with her son, who was the product of a rape. "Moonstruck" (no relation to the Cher vehicle of the same name) deals with a newlywed woman who is adversely affected by the full moon. The comedy team of Franco and Ciccio star in "The Jar," a fable concerning a feudal landlord and a merry-prankster jar manufacturer. And in "Conversing with Mother," the Tavianis go their usual route of forcing their characters to face the present by confronting the past by having Pirandello himself (Omero Antonutti) converse with the ghost of his long-departed mother (Regina Bianchi). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margarita Lozano, Claudio Bigagli, (more)
