Italian Cinema Today

A silent film luminary, she shunned celebrity and stepped away from the spotlight entirely with the advent of audio. Born in the Eternal City in 1889, Fernanda Negri Pouget was one of the first stars of Italian cinema. Her rise to fame was swift, and she went on to dominate Italy’s silent film era.   Negri Pouget studied the performing arts at Rome’s National Academy of Santa Cecilia, one of the oldest musical institutions in the world. She made her big-screen debut at the age of 17 in the 1906 short film “Il romanzo di un Pierrot,” which was produced by Rome’s leading production house, Alberini & Santoni. Three years later, she was chosen by prolific director Mario Caserini to star in his 1909 release “Beatrice Cenci.” The movie made her a star and was the first of many successful collaborations between the two.   In 1912, she relocated to Torino, where she joined the Ambrosio Film production company. There, she starred in a string of hits. Among them was Caserini’s 1913 “Dante e

An icon of 1970s Italian cinema, he poured himself heart and soul into every part he played. One of the most masterful actors of his generation, Gian Maria Volonté was born in Milan in 1933. He studied his craft at Rome’s National Dramatic Arts Academy. Upon graduating in 1957,  he found work right away in theater and television, quickly earning acclaim for his skilled and passionate performances .  In one of his early roles, he played Ramón Rojo under the stage name Johnny Wells opposite Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s 1964 Spaghetti Western, “A Fistful of Dollars.” A year later, he played the role of a Native American in Leone’s follow up, “A Few Dollars More.”   His breakout role came in Elio Petri’s 1970 “Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto” (Investigation Of a Citizen Above Suspicion) , a satirical film highlighting the corruption among officials in power.  After a newly promoted unnamed police chief (Volonté) murders his mistress (Florinda Bolkan) and leaves