Anna Bonaiuto Movies

Growing up in small-town Italy during the '60s and '70s, brothers Accio (Elio Germano) and Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) embody and celebrate opposing political stances, but share an impassioned love of the same woman that threatens to drive them to blows. Director Daniele Luchetti's political comedy Mio Fratello È Figlio Unico (aka My Brother Is an Only Child, 2007) observes the brothers over the course of 15 years, against the ever-shifting backdrop of tumultuous Italian sociopolitical history. During that time span, the siblings' loyalties will fluctuate; they will endure arguments and quarrels, and find themselves separated by the ravages of time and circumstance and reunited magnetically by the wisdom of age. In time, they will come to a firmer and clearer understanding of not only the differences but the similarities that they harbor. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

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, Rovi

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, Rovi

Mario Martone (L'amore Molesto) wrote and directed this drama about the tragedy of war, beginning with acting exercises in a garage rehearsal area and then intercutting between the lives of Italian stage actors and scenes of their rehearsals on Seven Against Thebes. Director Leo (Andrea Renzi), in 1994, arranges to have his Italian company, as an act of solidarity, do a show in Sarajevo where theaters have remained open. With the support from actor Vittorio (Marco Baliani), Leo seeks a key to staging the Aeschylus play about a civil war and a city under siege. Theater in Sarajevo is shown in contrast to the mainstream theater in Naples with a lavish production of The Taming of the Shrew staged by pompous Franco Turco (Toni Servillo). Actress Luisella (Iaia Forte) leaves Leo's Greek drama for Turco's production. Even though the actors are going without pay to Seven Against Thebes, young talent Diego (Roberto De Francesco) and diva Sara Cataldi (Anna Bonaiuto) both turn away from Turco to work with Leo, while set designer (Sergio Tramonti) contributes to both. Outside the rehearsal space, Neapolitan life goes on with neighborhood disputes, drug deals, fights, a police round-up, and murder -- events drawing parallels with Sarajevo. Some street scenes are unstaged, adding a documentary authenticity. Martone spent several years on this project by filming the rehearsals of a Seven Against Thebes stage production he directed in 1995-96 (featuring the same cast). Martone wrote his screenplay around that material, and then he filmed in the infamous Spanish Quarter of Naples, shooting in 16mm with a blow-up to 35mm. Shown in the Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Five Italian directors -- Pappi Corsicato, Antonietta DeLillo, Antonio Capuano, Stefano Incerti, Mario Martone -- contributed a quintet of short films depicting life in Naples under the shadow of the volcano for this anthology film of comedy, drama, surrealism, and political commentary on the Italian left. Shown at the 1997 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

A woman goes to investigate the apparent suicide of her mother and ends up having to face the grim reality of her past in this Italian psychological thriller. It all begins when Amalia, the sixty-something mother of Delia, is found dead on the beach. She had been on her way to Bologna to celebrate her daughter's birthday. Delia, wanting to know why her mother killed herself, journeys back to Naples to discover the truth. There she encounters her mother's supposed lover, Caserta, and his son, Antonio. She also sees her estranged father, who alienated himself from his family with his violent temper. As she continues to explore, she must face the fact that her relationship with her mother was as based on jealousy and disgust as it was with love. She then must face up to a terrible lie she told as a child, one that questioned her mother's fidelity and ruined the lives of everyone around her. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this remake of the 1983 Ardiente Paciencia by Antonio Skarmeta, the time and place have been changed to Italy in the 1950s, but the relationship between the Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda and Mario (Massimo Troisi), the postman who delivers his copious mail, is still the focus of attention. In this version of the story, scripted by a collective of Anna Pavignano, the director Michael Radford, Troisi himself, and a few others (based on Skarmeta's original story), Neruda is an aloof and slightly elitist figure who is seeking solitude on an island off the coast of Italy, taking a respite from political problems at home. Mario is a poet at heart and employs every measure he is capable of inventing to win his way into the affections and attention of the great author. As his efforts start to bear fruit and Neruda unbends and begins to share conversation and philosophy with Mario, the postman idolizes the poet all the more. Eventually, Neruda shares his leftist political philosophy as well -- and helps him win over the captivating Beatrice, the woman of Mario's dreams. When Neruda leaves, Mario enters into high gear as he prepares material for the next time he sees Neruda -- his ardor and patience, alluded to in the original title -- are essentially indestructible. (Massimo Troisi) was fated never to know that Il Postino would receive worldwide acclaim and be nominated for an Oscar for "Best Picture" in 1995 (the first foreign film nominated in that category since Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers 22 years earlier). Suffering from a heart ailment and unable to work more than an hour or two on the filming of Il Postino each day, he died in his sleep at the age of 41, the day after shooting ended on the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This political docudrama follows the real-life circumstances that led to the assassination of the anti-Mafia crusading judge Giovanni Falcone (Michele Placido) and his wife, in addition to the assassination of another such judge. A number of high-ranking Italian public figures were under investigation by the judge for their alleged association with the Mafia (and hence with these "hits") and they threatened lawsuits to prevent this film from being made or shown. Some small changes were made to prevent libel suits from being filed. Much of the dialogue comes directly from official documents in the cases the judge was prosecuting. It is interesting to note that, in interviews filmed for U.S. television, the judge acknowledged that his and his wife's lives were in danger, but he felt that the possibility reducing the power of the Sicilian mafia in Italy was worth the risk. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In Italy, Gloria is so dismayed to find that her husband has been carrying on an affair behind her back that she takes her two boys and goes to visit a sister in the U.S. who lives in St. Louis. The lads are intrigued to discover that their cousins are young women with very distinct attractions: one is blond, difficult and a bit of a hussy; the other sister is a brunette, very nice and sympathetic, but rather plain. Reviewers suggested that this film was shot in order to take advantage of the U.S. working visas that director Pupi Avati arranged in order to shoot the heartland jazz biography Bix, and they felt that this was not an especially successful effort. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

American character actor James Russo stars in the Italian melodrama La Cintura (The Belt). Russo's first mistake is to fall in love with Eleanora Brigliadori. His second mistake is to marry her. Experiencing a sexual epiphany on her wedding night, Brigliadori decides that she enjoys being brutally beaten. Reluctantly, Russo indulges his bride's S&M yearnings, but when he wants to put a stop to this activity, he learns to his horror that it's too late to turn back. La Cintura is based on a novel by Alberto Moravia. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Carla (Anna Bonaiuto) is forcibly reminded of her mortality when her father dies. She is an attractive, mature and successful woman, and there have been a lot of men in her life. When she has to bury her father, she becomes obsessed with looking up every man who has ever meant anything to her. Quietly accompanying her and making sure he is there to pick up the pieces after each encounter is Gianni (Francesco Capitano), her current lover. Though he keeps to the background, he is no doormat, as his intent is to see to it that she does not forget him while she relives the past. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this sex comedy, confusion over the masculinity of Sicilian father Vito (Turi Ferro) and his son Roberto (Marc Porel) reigns, especially when Roberto returns from England with a girlfriend whom everyone thinks is a boy. When they are seen kissing, he is assumed to be homosexual. Later, when his stepmother attempts to seduce him, the father assumes he has been cuckolded by his own son. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi