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Francesca Comencini

Francesca Comencini

Directing

Biography

Born in Rome in 1961, she is a director and screenwriter who studied philosophy at La Sapienza University before interrupting her studies to move to Paris, where she lived for eighteen years and where her three children were born. Her debut film, Pianoforte (1984), won the De Sica Award at the Venice International Film Festival. Since then, she has worked tirelessly across documentary and fiction, tackling themes that continually question reality and its conflicts, including Carlo Giuliani, Boy (2002), I Like to Work (Mobbing) (2004), In fabbrica (2007), and The White Space (2009). In the following years, he directed several episodes of TV series such as Gomorrah and Django. In 2024, he released The Time It Takes, an autobiographical film dedicated to his father, Luigi Comencini, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won the Nastri d’Argento awards for Best Film and Best Screenplay.

Known For

Gomorrah
8.0

Based on Robert Saviano's bestselling book, this gritty Italian crime drama paints a portrait of the brutal Neapolitan crime organisation the Camorra, as seen through the eyes of Ciro Di Marzo, the obedient and self- confident right-hand man of the clan's godfather, Pietro Savastano.

Gomorrah

2014
Le Cercle
N/A

As long as there is cinema, LE CERCLE will be there. It is the only television program of critical debates 100% devoted to cinema. Each week, it offers fiery, joyful and non-condescending jousts on the films on the bill; and invites with "Le questionnaire du CERCLE" directors to come and share their passion for cinema.

Le Cercle

2005
Django
5.5

In the Wild West in the 1860s and 1870s, Sarah and John have founded New Babylon, a city of outcasts of all backgrounds. Haunted by the murder of his family eight years earlier, Django is still looking for his daughter, believing she may have survived the killing. When Django shockingly finds her in Babylon, about to marry John, Sarah - now a grown woman - wants Django to leave fearing he'll put Babylon in jeopardy. But Django, believing the city is in danger, is adamant that he will not lose his daughter twice.

Django

2023
Luna Nera
7.6

In 17th-century Italy, a teenager learns about her destiny among a family of witches, just as her boyfriend's father hunts her down for witchcraft.

Luna Nera

2020
Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita
7.3

Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita

2021
What Do You Know About Me
7.0

Until the 1970s, Italian cinema dominated the international scene, even competing with Hollywood. Then, in just a few years, came its rapid decline, the flight of our greatest producers, a crisis among the best writer-directors, the collapse of production. But what are the true causes and circumstances of this decline? In an attempt to provide an answer to this question, Di Me Cosa Ne Sai strives to depict this great cultural change. Begun as a loving examination of Italian cinema, the film transformed into a docu-drama that alternates between interviews with the great names of the past and fragments of cultural and political life of the last 30 years. It is a travel diary that shows Italy from north to south, through movie theatres; television-addicted kids; Berlusconi and Fellini; shopping centers; TV news editors; stories of impassioned film exhibitors and directors who fight for their films; and interviews with itinerant projectionists and great European directors.

What Do You Know About Me

2009
Women Directors
N/A

Registe, talking on a blade is an Italian documentary about the Italian Cinema signed by women and about the pioneer of the Silent Cinema Elvira Notari (1875-1946) plays by Maria De Medeiros. The directors interviewed are the most important Italian women directors: Lina Wertmüller, Cecilia Mangini, Francesca Archibugi, Francesca Comencini, Wilma Labate, Cinzia Th Torrini, Roberta Torre, Antonietta De Lillo, Giada Colagrande, Donatella Maiorca, Ilaria Borrelli and others.

Women Directors

2014
Miracle of Marcellino
6.0

In the 15th century, in a poor Italian village, the monks of a modest convent take up an abandoned baby. Unfortunately, for all their efforts, they prove unable to trace his parents. So they set up providing tender loving care to the little boy. Marcellino lives a happy life among the men of God but, as he grows up, he misses his mother more and more.

Miracle of Marcellino

1991
Visions of Europe
5.2

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Visions of Europe

2004
A Boy from Calabria
6.5

Set in 1960, the year of the Rome Olympics, a 13 year-old boy with aspirations to become an athlete befriends an ageing, disabled bus driver who understands his ambitions.

A Boy from Calabria

1987
Stories of Love That Cannot Belong to This World
5.5

Claudia and Flavio were once passionately in love, but all of that is over. Now, in their fifties, they must venture anew into the world of love and dating once more but for Claudia confronting the end and accepting a new beginning isn’t so easy. Claudia is unwilling to let go and forget the life she’s built with Flavio, while Flavio, eager to move on, soon finds himself in a relationship with a much younger woman. Claudia soon reconnects with Nina, a student from her days as a professor.

Stories of Love That Cannot Belong to This World

2017
The French as Seen by…
6.9

In 1988, Figaro magazine asked a few famous directors to direct a series of short movies to celebrate the 10 years of the revue. The movies have been released for the French revolution bicentenary. Includes: Werner Herzog's Les Gaulois, David Lynch's The Cowboy and the Frenchman, Andrzej Wajda's Proust contre la déchéance, Luigi Comencini's Pèlerinage à Agen, Jean-Luc Godard's Le dernier mot.

The French as Seen by…

1988
Pianoforte
6.5

Maria studies at the university while her boyfriend Paolo is an established journalist. Both are drug addicts. Maria and Paolo try to detox with the help of a specialized clinic but it doesn't last long: back from a trip during which they proved to themselves that they could resist without drugs, both fall victim to addiction again. The consequences are not long in coming.

Pianoforte

1985
Annabelle partagée
3.7

In this mildly explicit sexual drama, the lovely dancer Annabelle (Delphine Zingg) has a passionate relationship with an older man but eventually decides to devote her romantic energies to a younger man with whom she has more in common. Between sex scenes, and philosophical discussions between friends and lovers about love and relationships, the viewer is treated to shots of the lovely dancer mulling over her life at various scenic locations in Paris.

Annabelle partagée

1991
Filming Desire: A Journey Through Women’s Cinema
10.0

The film consists largely of a series of interviews with female filmmakers from several different countries and filmmaking eras. Some, such as Agnès Varda and Catherine Breillat (both from France), have been making films for decades in a conscious effort to provide an alternative to the male filmmaking model; others, such as Moufida Tlatli (Tunisia) and Carine Adler (England), are relative newcomers to directing, and their approaches seem more personal and less political. The film as a whole manages to cover some important topics in the feminist debate about film -- how does one construct a female gaze, how can one film nude bodies without objectifying the actors (of either sex), what constitutes a strong female role -- while also making it clear that “women’s film” comprises as many different approaches to filmmaking as there are female filmmakers.

Filming Desire: A Journey Through Women’s Cinema

2000
The Time It Takes
6.9

A devoted father working in film shares a magical bond with his daughter, but as she enters adolescence and falls into addiction, he takes her to Paris in a final effort to save her and their fading connection.

The Time It Takes

2024
Our Country
5.4

Set in Milan, where people's lives are invisibly lead by money in its different shapes: too much, too little, stolen, earned, visible and even impalpable. The money flows from one story to the next, from one person to the other, becoming the engine of the film.Everything moves around two antagonist characters: Ugo and Rita. Ugo is a banker involved in a not really clean business. Rita, the Finance Police officer, is a strong and obstinate woman in charge of capturing Ugo. Other characters wander around them, with their weaknesses and fragility, their goodness, their evil and their contradictions. Characters meet, clash, love and hate each other, their lust for money becomes intense feelings.

Our Country

2006
I Like to Work – Mobbing
6.6

A woman comes across the difficulties of modern work: to force her to resign from her job, her firm tries all the humiliation techniques known as "mobbing". The film is based upon real cases reported by Italian unions.

I Like to Work – Mobbing

2004
La lumière du lac
8.0

An urban gigolo on the run from a mobster hides out at the remote cabin of a female novelist in this plodding romantic drama. Her neighbors include an elderly man with a penchant for growing sunflowers and an unhappy neighbor girl with emotional problems. Love blossoms for the unlikely couple who somehow realize their liaison is doomed to failure.

La lumière du lac

1988
The Words of My Father
7.0

At 30, Zeno's father dies, and he realizes that his youth is almost over. Meeting Giovanni Malfenti, a succesful gallery owner with four daughters, he's impressed by Malfenti's energy, and falls in love with one of his daughters. This relationship helps Zeno find peace and direction.

The Words of My Father

2001