Italian Cinema Today

Producer Dino De Laurentiis was one of the most prolific filmmakers ever, having produced or co-produced more than 600 films during a career that spanned seven decades. His legacy continues not only through the work of his children and grandchildren but also through a new generation of filmmakers in his Italian hometown. De Laurentiis was born in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius on Aug. 8, 1919, in the city of Torre Annunziata, located just minutes from the ruins of Pompeii. As a child, he worked at a local pasta factory owned and operated by his father. That experience had a profound effect on him, shaping a lifelong passion for food and an appreciation for business. At the age of 17, he decided to leave home for the big city. He arrived in Rome and enrolled in the prestigious film school, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. After attending the school for about a year, he managed to produce one film in 1940, The Last Combat , before having to leave Rome temporarily for m...

After watching Italian films, the two things I love doing are traveling around Italy and indulging in the country's amazing regional food. Celebrity chef and Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis has found a way to showcase all three in her new series "Giada in Italy". The show airs every Sunday on the Food Network at 12:00 eastern/11:00 central and features the gorgeous chef cooking her way through Italy. Giada is the granddaughter of Silvana Mangano and Dino De Laurentiis, a power couple of the Golden Age of Italian cinema. Giada carries on her grandmother's looks and grace as well as Dino's passion for food. Giada's mother Veronica De Laurentiis is an actress and advocate for women. She recently started her own show, "Dillo a Veronica" in which she profiles ordinary women who have overcome the struggles of life. To read the history of the three generations of De Laurentiis women, check out an article that I posted last year about the  legac...

Silvana Mangano is one of Italy's most memorable leading ladies. She was born in Rome on April 21, 1930 and grew up amid conditions of poverty during World War II.   She persevered through those tough times training as a dancer.   Then in 1946, she won the Miss Rome beauty pageant, a victory that gave her the push she needed to discover her destiny. Just three years later, she landed a role in one of the most influential films of Italian cinema, Riso Amaro (Bitter Rice) by  Giuseppe De Santis. The film was one of the first of the Neorealism film movement and received an Academy Award nomination in 1950.   Produced by Mangano's husband, the prolific filmmaker, Dino De Laurentiis,   Riso Amaro is a multi-layered story, which called on Mangano's talent and sex appeal to pull off the part of a peasant girl who could manipulate just about anyone with her beauty. The story follows three main characters through the rice-planting season in northern Italy...

Update May 14, 2016 Veronica De Laurentiis recently launched her new web series called "Dillo a Veronica" (Tell it to Veronica) and honestly, I am hooked. The series has a very simple premise- Veronica meets with one woman for about 20 minutes to talk about her struggles in life and how she overcame them. Veronica should know because she overcame years of abuse and her empathy for the pain of others helps her when interviewing these women. The conversations are friendly and casual but gripping. You do need some knowledge of the Italian language because the interviews are done in Italian and there are not yet subtitles. Personally, I love watching them in Italian because it's like a 20-minute language lesson on conversational Italian, especially with the different accents. The show is entering its fourth week, and new episodes are posted every Friday. There are three episodes currently available. You can watch them on the show's YouTube page or on Facebook . I hi...