SUMMER IN ITALY A GREAT HOMMAGE TO THE ITALIAN CINEMA CLASSICS

USPA NEWS - The Toronto International Film Festival with it Cinematheque tradition propose series of Italian cinema classics, featuring several restorations of key films by such masters as Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Roberto Rossellini...

- Rome, Open City
Shot in the war-torn streets of Rome using remnants of film stock and relying on erratic electricity, Roberto Rossellini's neorealist masterpiece is one of the key films in cinema history.
- Amarcord
Federico Fellini's nostalgic vision of his childhood in the seaside town of Rimini earned the director his fourth Academy Award and some of the most rapturous reviews of his career.
- Il Sorpasso
An uptight law student (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is taken under the wing of a loud-mouthed good-time guy (Vittorio Gassman) in this classic example of "comedy Italian-style."

- Divorce Italian Style
Marcello Mastroianni exudes grizzled, deadpan charm as a lounge lizard Sicilian baron who hatches an elaborate plan to dispatch his sex-crazed wife, in this classic comedy that won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
- Sandra
A ravishing Claudia Cardinale stars in Luchino Visconti's modern-day version of the Electra myth.
- The Fiances
Ermanno Olmi's deceptively simple tale of separated lovers has been hailed by many as one of the most beautiful and important works of Italian cinema.
- Story of a Love Affair
The feature debut by the great Michelangelo Antonioni relocates James M. Cain's noir classic The Postman Always Rings Twice to the swish environs of fashion-conscious Milan

- Red Desert
The first colour film by Michelangelo Antonioni is considered one of the greatest works of European cinema.
- The Passionate Thief
Anna Magnani treats the scenery like so much crostini in her rampaging role as a Cinecittà extra desperate for attention, in this grand comedy from director Mario Monicelli.
- The Assassin
Marcello Mastroianni stars as a murder suspect jousting with a crafty inspector, in the controversial first feature from director Elio Petri (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion).
- Il Bidone
A trio of swindlers prey on the poor and the vulnerable, in this early masterpiece by Federico Fellini.

- Seduced and Abandoned
A hysterical patriarch goes to extreme lengths to defend his family honour after his fifteen-year-old daughter is impregnated by her elder sister's fiancé, in this blackly funny satire of Sicilian macho mores.
- La Dolce Vita
September 5
Federico Fellini defined "decadence" for a generation with this widescreen, epic vision of Rome at the height of the postwar Italian economic miracle.
- The Leopard
Burt Lancaster is majestic as a 19th-century Sicilian aristocrat clinging to traditional values as the world gives way to a new order, in Luchino Visconti's majestic and sumptuously beautiful epic.

- China is Near
This brand new digital restoration of Marco Bellocchio's vicious satire of 1960s Italian society is one of the essential cinematic events of the year.
- Mafioso
Humour mingles with horror in this masterful black comedy from the great Alberto Lattuada, about a Milan factory manager whose return to his Sicilian hometown takes a turn for the terrifying when he finds himself recruited for a mission of murder.
- Big Deal on Madonna Street
An ensemble of Italy's finest screen actors, including Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, Totò, and Claudia Cardinale, has a field day in this consummate comedy about a band of washed-up, has-been petty thieves who decide to rob a jewellery store.

- Fellini Satyricon
Loosely based on the classic text by Petronius, Federico Fellini's unforgettable rendering of ancient Rome is a surrealistic vision of decadence and death.
- Hands Over the City
The great director Francesco Rosi took the top prize at the Venice Film Festival for this scathing condemnation of civic corruption.
- The Organizer
This towering classic of Italian cinema features one of Marcello Mastroianni's most memorable performances as a soft-spoken professor cum labour activist who becomes the leader of a factory strike in turn-of-the-century Turin.

- Cabiria
Perhaps the most momentous screening of the summer: this immensely important and influential silent historical epic receives its first Cinematheque screening ever, in a restored print imported from Italy.
- The Conformist
Bernardo Bertolucci's gorgeously decadent adaptation of the novel by Alberto Moravia gave Jean-Louis Trintignant one of his greatest roles as a suave lawyer who tries to sublimate his repressed homosexuality by joining Mussolini's Fascists.
- Stromboli
The first collaboration between Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman has been acclaimed by Martin Scorsese as "an intensely moving exploration of sainthood and spirituality."

- Fear preceded by The Chicken a.k.a. Ingrid Bergman
The final collaboration between Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini before their divorce is a noirish tale of marital betrayal, guilt, and confession that clearly reflects the impending breakup of their relationship.
- Europa '51
August 30
Roberto Rossellini's tale of a society matron (Ingrid Bergman) seeking redemption after a tragedy occurs in her family is one of the most important and influential films in postwar cinema.
- Voyage in Italy
September 5
Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders star in Roberto Rossellini's portrait of a disintegrating marriage, which is widely considered to be one of the key films of the modern cinema.