The Bride Was Beautiful

Adriano is a middle-aged man living in a dilapidated villa in Tuscany, when a group of young idealistic students arrives to restore the villa's vineyards.

Carlo and Elisa are a successful couple. He’s a university professor and writer facing a creative block; she’s a brilliant, sharp-witted journalist, known for her internationally published editorials. They live in Rome, moving between accomplishments and routine, affection and something that might be fading. In search of new energy, they travel to Morocco with their lifelong friends, Anna and Paolo, and their thirteen-year-old daughter Vittoria—bright, curious, a little eccentric. Tensions soon rise.

In a small suburb on the outskirts of Rome, the cheerful heat of summer camouflages a stifling atmosphere of alienation. From a distance, the families seem normal, but it’s an illusion: in the houses, courtyards and gardens, silence shrouds the subtle sadism of the fathers, the passivity of the mothers and the guilty indifference of adults. But it’s the desperation and repressed rage of the children that will explode and cut through this grotesque façade, with devastating consequences for the entire community.

Vincent was born near Paris, but has cut off every link with his roots. Maria, fifteen years younger, grew up in Ostia, but no longer sees her family. Together they form a couple that does not seem to need anyone. They lead a secluded life in contemporary Rome, indolent and distracted. Furthermore, Vincent and Maria are good at blending in with their environment. When they return home, they make love with the passion of young lovers in a suburban apartment that she has carefully furnished. Yet, on closer inspection, their everyday life betrays what lies behind their seemingly normal appearance: a project carried out by him with a clear determination and accepted by her only by virtue of unconditional love. A plan to help couples who cannot have children. Maria decides that it is time to create a real family. This choice has an inevitable consequence: the rebellion against Vincent, the man of her life.

Train operator Andrea Marcocci has to witness the suicide of a desperate man who jumps in front of his train. Under the influence of this shock he starts making mistakes. A check up by a doctor reveals that he's at the brink of becoming an alcoholic. Due to this evaluation he is degraded and must accept a salary cut.

Italy, 1989. After years of hard training, 13-year-old Felice, carrying his father's expectations on his shoulders, finally sets out to compete in the national tennis tournaments. While dreaming of a simple summer vacation, he's instead placed under the wing of ex tennis champion Raul, an unconventional coach hired by his father. Match after match, the two embark on a journey that will lead Felice to discover the taste of freedom, and Raul to glimpse the possibility of a fresh start. As they travel along the Italian coast, an unexpected, deep, and sincere bond between them develops.

Struggling with a financial crisis, a good-looking widow decides to put herself up for grabs. However, going through with it becomes almost impossible with a new love and the legal system thrown into the mix.

At the end of World War II, shallow, self-centered Mara is the prettiest girl in her small Italian village; Bebo is a Communist partisan who is finding it difficult to adjust to the dull banalities of life in peacetime. When Mara’s father, a passionate Communist, declares that his daughter will marry the returning hero, her reactions range from joy to bitter resentment.

"Loro", in two parts, is a period movie that chronicles, as a fiction story, events likely happened in Italy (or even made up) between 2006 and 2010. "Loro" wants to suggest in portraits and glimps, through a composite constellation of characters, a moment in history, now definitively ended, which can be described in a very summary picture of the events as amoral, decadent but extraordinarily alive. Additionally, "Loro" wishes to tell the story of some Italians, fresh and ancient people at the same time: souls from a modern imaginary Purgatory who, moved by heterogeneous intents like ambition, admiration, affection, curiosity, personal interests, establish to try and orbit around the walking Paradise that is the man named Silvio Berlusconi.

A young Roman woman during the 1950s is on the verge of becoming engaged to a man. She goes to Cinecittà to do an audition as an extra and is thrust into this almost infinite night during which she discovers herself.

Franco Elica is a film director casting a remake of a pious melodrama in Rome. He's melancholy, heading south for a break. On a beach, he meets a man who films weddings and is roped into helping film the wedding of the daughter of a severe and imperious prince. The wedding is one of convenience - the prince needs money, the groom is a mama's boy. Elica is attracted to the bride, Boda, and tries to convince her not to marry. No matter how outrageous his behavior, the prince keeps Elica on as the wedding director. As the wedding approaches, what's real blurs with Elica's imagination. Is he mad?

In the fascist Italy of 1935, a painter trained as a doctor is exiled to a remote region near Eboli. Over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation.

In the last days of the Second World War, a deserting soldier disrupts a tranquil and isolated mountain community. For one family, his arrival brings excitement and romance, but tragedy lies in wait.

Alina is a brilliant and enterprising woman who runs a successful art gallery in Palermo. Her husband Daniele, a successful orchestra conductor, cultured and intelligent, is not a regular presence. One day, while accompanying Daniele to the airport, Alina feels a sense of emptiness. She will try to fill it with a butcher who is always joking and full of erotic allusions and who arouses a strong attraction in her.

Living in rural Texas is a dysfunctional family: an abusive dad, a Vietnam vet with a war wound that's left him impotent; a compliant wife and a son of about 20, two small sons who look a lot like their brother. The dad harbors a secret, and he goes to murderous lengths to keep it hidden. The young man, Jimmy, who has suspicions, but little comes out until a Yankee woman comes to town.

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

Matteo Scuro is a retired Sicilian bureaucrat, a widower with five children, all of whom live on the mainland and hold responsible jobs. He decides to surprise each with a visit and finds none as he imagined.

Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

Enrico is a struggling journalist in the Rome of 1945. He receives a phone call informing him that his younger brother Lorenzo has died. Enrico recalls their long and difficult relationship; he was brought up by their poor but warm-hearted grandmother, Lorenzo was raised as a gentleman by a wealthy local aristocrat. Reunited in the Florence of the 1930s, Enrico becomes his spoilt brother's keeper, forever haunted by a sense of guilty responsibility towards a man he both hates and loves.