Italian Cinema Today

Free Spirits of Mario Martone's Capri Revolution on the coast of Gaeta “Città del Cinema” (City of Cinema) is a recent nickname given to a former fortress for the Roman Empire.  Located on the southern end of Rome’s region of #Lazio and bordering Naples' region of #Campania, Gaeta boasts picturesque mountainous shorelines and centuries-old structures. Scenes from Saverio Costanzo's HBO series  L'amica geniale ( My Brilliant Friend) were filmed in July along the city's seascapes .  The director shot scenes from the first season and returned to film scenes with director Alice Rohrwacher, his girlfriend and collaborator. The set was closed and for the most part, hidden from public view. The scenes were shot on the beach and in the sea. There's speculation that the scenes are part of a vacation plot of the two friends, Elena and Elisa, played by actresses Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace.  Click here   to see a few photos of the shoot taken from...

One of contemporary Italian cinema's most versatile actors, his characters have taken on organized crime, driven taxicabs, fought for civil rights and agonized over dark family secrets.  Born in Palermo in 1967, Luigi Lo Cascio attended the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome, earning his diploma with a dissertation on "Hamlet".  He pursued a careering theater and gave little thought to working in film. That all changed when he accepted the role of Peppino Impastato, the courageous anti-mafia activist killed by Cosa Nostra in 1978. After a long series of screen tests to find the perfect actor to play the role, Luigi Maria Burruano, an actor already cast in the role of the protagonist's father, advised the director, Marco Tullio Giordana to test his nephew. Thoroughly impressed, Giordana offered Lo Cascio the part and it was a move that changed the course of his life.  His performance in "I Cento Passi"   (One Hundred Steps) was power...