My Class 2013

The ostensibly simple story of a sympathetic veteran teacher giving Italian lessons to a weekly class of diverse immigrants is given infinitely more depth and complexity by the manner in which director Daniele Gaglianone renders his story. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, truth and artifice, and between documentary and drama, Gaglianone has created a film within a film. You see the apparent artifice of Gaglianone’s crew using professionals, including the noted film actor Valerio Mastandrea as the teacher, interlinked with ‘real’ immigrant protagonists, studying the language to improve their chances of employment and of gaining a permanent residence permit. Thus in the course of the lessons there is simultaneously the painful and upsetting relation of the students’ personal stories but also humour, as they interact and share their humanity, bridging cultural differences, united in their striving to make a better life for themselves. (Source: LFF programme)

Bits & Pieces 1996

Dive into the Eternal City – see Rome like you’ve never seen it before. Storefront robberies, bizarre murders, career dreamers, and cameos from Italy's foremost directors and actors feature in this star-studded omnibus tale about life and love.

Ci sarà un giorno (Il giovane Pertini) 1993

Se non avessi l'amore 1991

The film covers the last year of Pier Giorgio Frassati life, son of the family that owned the newspaper La Stampa, who lived between 1901 and 1925 and was beatified in 1990.

The Invisible Wall 1991

June 27, 1980: a DC–9 flying over the Tyrrhenian Sea breaks up mid-air and crashes near the Italian island of Ustica, killing all 81 people on board. The official version blames the "structural failure" of the plane, but a young journalist smells a cover-up and starts to uncover the truth out of the 'invisible wall' of lies built by politicians and air force higher-ups.

I'll Be Going Now 1991

After eighteen years of psychiatric care, the former bank manager Augusto Scrivani returns home from his daughter-in-law Carla. Dino Risi directs a melancholy and scratchy Gassman.