Notizie

Marina Cicogna, a film producer and one of the first women to establish herself in the traditionally male cinema environment in Italy, died Saturday in Rome. She was 89.

Cicogna produced several important Italian films, including Metti, una Sera a Cena by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi and Indagine su un Cittadino al di Sopra di Ogni Sospetto (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion) by Elio Petri, with the latter winning the Oscar for best foreign language film in 1971. The New York Times called her “one of the most powerful women in European cinema.”

Her extraordinary experience and career were recounted in 2021 in the documentary film Marina Cicogna. Life and Everything Else by Andrea Bettinetti and in her autobiography, Ancora Spero, released this year by Marsilio Publishing.

Cicogna died with Benedetta Gardona, her companion of more than 30 years, by her side.

Ahead of receiving the 2023 David Award for Lifetime Achievement this year, Cicogna...

The David di Donatello Awards, which are modeled on the Oscars, were established in the 1950s as Italy’s film industry started thriving amid the country’s postwar reconstruction effort.

Below are some milestones that provide a partial mini-history of postwar Italian cinema.

1956: The first David di Donatello awards ceremony takes place at Rome’s Cinema Fiamma. The gold statuette, which is a replica of Michelangelo’s David, is made by Bulgari. Vittorio De Sica, Walt Disney, and Gina Lollobrigida are among the year’s prizewinners.

1957: The Davids ceremony moves to Taormina’s Ancient Greek Theater, which will host the ceremony for many more years to come. Federico Fellini wins the best director prize for “Nights of Cabiria.”

1958: Anna Magnani wins best actress for George Cukor’s “Wild Is the Wind.” Marilyn Monroe is feted for her role in “The Prince and the Showgirl,” directed by Laurence Olivier.

The 49th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will pay tribute to Anurag Kashyap, along with Italian filmmaker Elio Petri and British director and artist Ben Rivers.

Director, screenwriter and producer Anurag Kashyap presented his ambitious gangster saga Gangs of Wasseypur at Cannes Film Festival in 2012. At the same festival last year the filmmaker presented his latest feature Ugly (2013).

The festival describes Kashyap as a ““Powerful storyteller, who ingeniously injects Western cinematic styling into Indian situations…”

Among the seven movies that he will personally introduce to audiences this year at Karlovy Vary are Dev.D (2009), Gulaal (2009), and That Girl in Yellow Boots (2010).

While Ben Rivers is a contemporary British filmmaker, Elio Petri (1929-1982) was a self-taught Italian filmmaker and intellectual who took the Palme d’Or at Cannes (The Working Class Goes to Heaven, 1971) and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion, 1969). However, he was...

A “neglected” Italian legend, a key figure in contemporary Indian cinema, and the complete work of a renowned British visual artist and filmmaker are to feature at the next Karlovy Vary film festival.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is to pay tribute to three diverse filmmakers - Ben Rivers, Anurag Kashyap and Elio Petri - at it 49th edition, which runs July 4-12.

A year after introducing its Imagina sidebar, which focuses on movies veering from common narrative and stylistic patterns, the new festival section will offer a complete profile of British director and artist Ben Rivers, who will attend Kviff.

Rivers, whose work straddles documentary and parable, shoots in 16mm and often centres on social outsiders. Although the director focuses mainly on short films, his most well-received feature to date is A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness (2013), on which Rivers cooperated with director Ben Russell and musician Robert A. A. Lowe (known...

Versatile Italian actor known for her roles in Lina Wertmüller's films

Mariangela Melato, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 71, was one of Italy's most versatile and vivacious actresses, working in theatre and cinema with some of the leading directors of her time. She won international cult status for three films directed by Lina Wertmüller in which she co-starred with Giancarlo Giannini: The Seduction of Mimi (1972), Love and Anarchy (1973) and Swept Away (1974), in all of which the controversial Wertmüller mixed sex and politics. Melato had no qualms about submitting with great good humour to the sometimes humiliating situations and explicit dialogue inflicted on the two stars.

Those Wertmüller films made Melato well-known, but she liked to be recognised as an actor rather than a star. Born in Milan, she trained at the city's Brera Academy. One of the first companies to sign her up was that of the...