Italian Cinema Today

Alida Valli was born Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg in Pola, Istria, on April 29, 1921. Christened a baroness, she became a movie star at 15. Valli made her screen debut as a lead in Mario Bonnard’s 1937 comedy “Il feroce Saladino.”  In an interview featured in Mimmo Verdesca's 2020 documentary, “Alida Valli: In Her Own Words,” she explained how her last name was changed to Valli. “The writer Amedeo Castellazzi and the director Mario Bonnard found it (Valli) in the phone book. Because Altenburger was a foreign name, it was a bit too long, and so Alida Altenburger didn’t sound right,” she explained. Valli entered the film industry during a period when Italy’s Fascist government was constructing Cinecittà while producing its own propaganda films. Known as Telefoni Bianchi (White Telephones), the films of this era imitated American comedies and featured upper-class families, opulent Art Deco sets, and the namesake telephones, which symbolized the well-to-do...

HBO has just added Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 "Apocalypse Now" to its online streaming platform. I saw a 4K restoration of the film in 2017 at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York where cinematographer Vittorio Storaro was being honored and actually presented the film. In this clip, he recounts when co-producer Fred Roos first approached him with Coppola’s offer. At first, Storaro didn’t think that he was the right person for the project, but after some research into the director's vision for the film, he realized that it would be the opportunity of a lifetime.  Watch a clip from his presentation.. “He sent Fred Roos – he’s a co-producer – to Rome in 1975 to ask me to be part of the incredible journey of “Apocalypse Now.” I was surprised about that proposal. In fact, I said to Fred Roos, ‘Why me? What do I have to do with a war movie between America and Vietnam? I feel uneasy. I feel it’s not my place. In Italy, I usually do movies with Bertolucci an...

On screen since the age of 14, Stefania Sandrelli has captivated audiences for more than 50 years with a compelling combination of strength and vulnerability. She achieved stardom at just 14, playing the angelic cousin of a love-stricken Marcello Mastroianni in Pietro Germi’s “Divorce Italian Style.” More than half a century later, she is still going strong and remains one of Italy’s most esteemed actors. Sandrelli was born on June 5, 1946, in Viareggio, in the province of Lucca, in northern Italy. As a child, she studied music and dance. Then in 1960, she won a beauty pageant and was featured on the cover of Le Ore magazine. Her purity captivated the country, and shortly thereafter, movie offers began pouring in. Just one year later, she made her cinema debut in three feature films: Mario Sequi’s “Gioventù di notte,” Luciano Salce’s “The Fascist ,”  and Pietro Germi’s “Divorce Italian Style.” She instantly became a star and, before long, was a key figure in Italy’s legendary com...

With a career that spans over six decades, Bernardo Bertolucci never seems to run out of stories to tell or innovative ways to shoot them. Born in the northern Italian city of Parma in 1940, Bertolucci grew up surrounded by arts and literature. His father was a writer, film critic, and art history professor. He encouraged his son's creativity and interest in films and frequently took him to film screenings. By the age of 15, Bernardo Bertolucci had made 2 short films and was becoming a respected writer. His first book, "In Cerca del Mistero" (In Search of Mystery), won the Premio Viareggio, one of the top literary awards in Italy.    Bertolucci originally set out to be a writer and poet like his father. In 1958, at the age of 18, he enrolled in the University of Rome and attended the Faculty of Modern Literature. Shortly thereafter, he started working under the guidance of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Bertolucci's father had helped Pasolini publish his first novel, and Pas...