Maresco / Pasolini 2021

Franco Maresco celebrates the heritage of Pier Paolo Pasolini on the 99th anniversary of his birth through a series of exchanges with renowned intellectuals which were involved or influenced by his works and ideas.

Mafia Is Not What It Used to Be 2019

Palermo, Sicily, Italy, 2017. Twenty-five years after the murders of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone, on May 23, 1992, and Paolo Borsellino, on July 19, 1992; and on the occasion of the tributes held in memory of both heroes, skeptical photographer Letizia Battaglia, chronicler of their titanic combat, criticizes the opportunism of shady characters who, like businessman Ciccio Mira, profit from the commemoration of both tragedies.

I Don't Know the Men of this City 2015

Franco scaldati - died in 2013 - was one of the most important autors of italian theatre plays, Maresco describes his role in the cultural and social field. Through his opera we can observe Italy from another point of view.

Venice 70: Future Reloaded 2013

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

Détour De Seta 2005

By tracing the places of Vittorio De Seta films and looking for people who had contact with him, as the Cozzo Disi sulfur miners, Ganzirri swordfish fishermens and shepherds who attended in drama Banditi a Orgosolo, the documentary focuses on great change started in local cultures of the Southern Italy from 1945. The film includes an interview with De Seta, conversations with the film directors Luciano Tovoli, Franco Maresco, Gianfranco Pannone, writers Vincenzo Consolo, Goffredo Fofi, Eugenio Turri and the critic Marco Gazzano. Set in Calabria, Sardinia and Sicily, the film was shot in 35mm film and digital, contains stock footage and images taken by De Seta.

How We Got the Italian Movie Business Into Trouble: The True Story of Franco and Ciccio 2004

The Return of Cagliostro 2003

In the Sicily of the late 1940s, two brother sculptors, tired of selling madonnas to the local churches, finally realize their dream, and set up a Sicilian production company, thanks to the help of a local bishop. They start producing one box-office failure Z-movie after the other, all with terribly bad local non-pros as actors. Covered in debts, they finally have their great chance, when a local nobleman obsessed by magic decides to invest all his wealth in the making of a movie about Cagliostro, just one year after Orson Welles' Black Magic (1949). They hire a famous American actor (Robert Englund) and start shooting "The Return of Cagliostro".

Sud Side Stori 2000

In Roberta Torre's "true story of Romeo and Julet", Toni Giulietto is a vulnerable street singer and Little Tony-impersonator (who is himself an Italian Elvis-impersonator) who is constantly deceived and hoodwinked by almost everyone he knows. Romea is an attractive Nigerian immigrant who sells sex on the streets of Palermo to pay off her huge fee to the man who smuggled her in to the country. Various characters plot against each other and the plots, which draw in people from all the different social strata, spiral out of control as the tug-of-war between these different factions of Sicilian society is fought to the last.

Toto Who Lived Twice 1998

The film has three stories. First is about local village idiot Paletta, who can not afford the services of a whore and so steals a locket from a holy shrine belonging to local mafia don. Second shows the story of betrayal of Pitrinu (who's dead now) by his lover Fefe. Final episode is about lowlife Lazarus. He is killed by mob boss Toto, but raised from the dead by a local messiah, who is also known as Toto (and is played by same actor).

The Uncle from Brooklyn 1995

The best italian film of the 90's, the most extreme and radical work since SALO', a ruthless representation, in a surreal-metaphorical key, of a civilization condemned to worshipping its own blindness. The two sicilian directors use a language free from compromise and from the traditional storyline rules: the movie is photographed in a sharp and very contrasting black & white, with no beautiful pimp music, and lacks a logical story. There are no women (the ones we see are actually men), and the language is strict sicilian dialect. The directing style is characterized by long fixed shots on a post-atomic world, which is really present-day Palermo, inhabited by fat people in socks and underwear who burp and fart while roaming around smelly alleyways and waste dumps.

Shock Corridor 1992

Short 35mm experimental film featuring Sam Fuller.

Romagnolo 1989

Romagnolo is a short film contained CinicoTV series by the duo Maresco & Ciprì .