Italian Cinema Today

Whether cast as a princess or a pauper, she managed to bring ancient Rome to life with her sophistication and goddess-like looks.   Born in Puglia in 1935, Wandisa Guida entered the Miss Italia beauty pageant when she was 19 years old, winning the title of Miss Cinema. That victory led her to enroll in Rome’s film school, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, and a short but successful acting career followed.     Guida was a leading lady in several sword-and-sandal epics, a subgenre of Italian adventure films from the early 1960s that were predominately set in Greco-Roman antiquity. Guida’s ability to imbue her characters with grace, sophistication, and courage greatly contributed to the subgenre’s popularity.   Her breakout role came in Mario Costa’s 1962 “The Gladiator of Rome.” Boasting sumptuous sets and lavish costumes, the film is set during the tumultuous final days of Roman Emperor Caracalla’s chaotic rule. The international cast includes Guida as Princess Nisa and Gordon Sco

With a gift for melding disparate clips into compelling documentaries, he has captured the spirit of Italian cinema from the 1930s to the present. Marco Spagnoli is one of Italy’s most prolific film journalists, having made numerous documentaries on the country’s beloved film icons and reporting in-depth about cinema for a variety of publications.   Among his most compelling works is the 2011 documentary “Hollywood Invasion,” which zooms in on Italian and European cinema during the “Dolce Vita” decades from 1950-80. Utilizing NBC newsreels to tell his story, Spagnoli offers an extraordinary take on this period in cinematic history.   The film features rare clips of Hollywood stars like Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe roaming about Italy in the 1950s, as well as tantalizing behind-the-scenes glimpses of several American productions. Marilyn Monroe in a scene from  “Hollywood Invasion”  You’ll have a front-row seat to the creation of iconic moments like the chariot races