
Valerio Zurlini
Directing
Biography
Valerio Zurlini (19 March 1926 – 26 October 1982) was an Italian stage and film director and screenwriter. During his law studies in Rome , he started working in the theatre. In 1943, he joined the Italian resistance . Zurlini became a member of the Italian Communist Party . He filmed short documentaries in the immediate post-war period before he directed his first feature film in 1954, The Girls of San Frediano . In 1958, Zurlini won the Nastro d'Argento together with Leonardo Benvenuti , Piero De Bernardi and Alberto Lattuada for Best Script for Lattuada's Guendalina . Zurlini made his name as a director with his second feature film, Violent Summer (1959), starring Eleonora Rossi Drago and Jean Louis Trintignant . In 1961, Zurlini filmed Girl with a Suitcase , starring Claudia Cardinale , who became a film star in Italy, and Jacques Perrin , who would become Zurlini's favorite actor. His 1962 film Family Diary earned Zurlini the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (it tied with Tarkovsky 's Ivan's Childhood ). Both The Girls of San Frediano and Family Diary were based on Vasco Pratolini 's work.
Known For

Wealthy teenager Guendalina is a child of divorce. Oberdan, likewise a teenager, is a boy from a blue-collar family. Escaping from the tribulations of her home life, Guendalina creates a dream world of her own, casting Oberdan as her personal Prince Charming. Despite parental objections, girl and boy fall in love. Interestingly enough, the relationship between Guendalina and Oberdan remains pure and chaste throughout their film, which is more than can be said for their parents. their respective parents behave with marked laciviousness.
Guendalina

In Italy, the gambler and professor of poetry Daniele Dominici arrives in the seaside town of Rimini and is hired to teach for four months in the local high school replacing another teacher. His relationship with his partner Monica is in crisis and he spends most of the time with his new acquaintances and gamblers Giorgio, Marcello and Gerardo. In classroom, he meets the gorgeous nineteen years old student Vanina Abati, who is Gerardo's girlfriend.
Indian Summer

Lieutenant Giovanni Drogo is assigned to the old Bastiani border fortress where he expects an imminent attack by nomadic fearsome Tartars.
The Desert of the Tartars

Summer, 1943: wealthy youth in the Riccione district of Rimini play while the war gets closer. Carlo Caremoli, a young man who follows the crowd, has found ways to avoid military service. Then, on the beach, he meets Roberta, a war widow with a child. Roberta's mother warns Roberta to avoid Carlo, but to her, he seems attentive and to her daughter he is kind. Romance develops. Within a few weeks, Roberta is risking everything. Can there be a resolution between passion, on the one hand, and war, duty, and social expectation on the other?
Violent Summer

Lorenzo, who's 16 and born to a wealthy family in Parma, tries to make things right toward a showgirl, Aida, whom his older brother has mistreated. In extending kindness and standing up for her, he comes of age. But, is there anything he can do that will alter Aida's situation or her prospects?
Girl with a Suitcase

In WWII, Lieut. Martino and his men are assigned to lead a group of prostitutes through the mountainous ways to serve in brothels for Italian soldiers in Albania.
The Camp Followers

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.
Family Diary

Paola, wife of a wealthy Turinese industrialist, meets Alberto, a friend of her husband, who emigrated to Argentina and has returned for business reasons. After a few days, Alberto confesses his love to Paola, but she resists. However, during a vacation in Sardinia, having waited in vain for the arrival of her husband, she gives in to Alberto's wishes.
How, When, and with Whom

Andrea, a young and charming florentine mechanic in the 1950s, romances five beautiful women simultaneously, enjoying life without really committing to anyone, but in the end who wants to grasp all lose all.
The Girls of San Frediano

A thinly-disguised biography of African leader Patrice Lumumba, here called Lalubi. Lalubi, a Christ-like leader determined to save his people, by passive resistance, from the dictatorial regime propped up by European colonialists, is imprisoned and tortured, along with a thief who comes to a greater understanding through his contact with Lalubi.
Black Jesus

After shooting to fame with Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” (1960), actor Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996) starred in more than 160 films in his nearly half-a-century career. Directors Mario Canale and Annarosa Morri look into the melancholic charm of one of the most famous Italian actors through interviews with his two daughters, Barbara and Chiara; directors Fellini and Luchino Visconti; actresses Claudia Cardinale and Anouk Aimee; and in archival footage of Mastroianni himself. The subject matter ranges from Mastroianni’s passion for kidney-bean pasta and his addiction to the telephone to his famous laziness, humility and talent. Shown in black-and-white, Mastroianni — elegantly holding a cigarette in between his fingers — is undeniably the dandy.
Marcello, una vita dolce

A documentary about director Valerio Zurlini. The "lost images" of the title are the movies Zurlini was never able to shoot: between 1962, the year he won the Golden Lion with Family Diary, and 1982, the year of his death, he directed only four features. The documentary features interviews with close collaborators (celebrated screenwriters Enrico Medioli and Nicola Badalucco) and some of his actors (Jacques Perrin and Claudia Cardinale).
The Years of Lost Images
A day in the life of a train station.
The Station

Marat, Lika and Leonidik, survivors of the atrocities of World War II, meet up by chanche and start helping each other to continue their life.
La promessa

From the middle of an amateur boxing match to its dramatic technical knock-out, the camera follows the quick ballet of the boxers. The action is followed by a variety of spectators, some wild and vociferous, some suffering in silence form what they see; men and women, poor and rich... Then, one sees the amateurs next day, as they work in their true professions, mostly humble ones: street-sweepers, butchers... The end is the beginning: the training, and the warming up until another boxer goes up a spiral metal staircase to another match in another derelict boxing arena.
Pugilatori
No description available.
Valerio Zurlini, peintre des sentiments
An Italian short movie.
Mercato delle facce
Documentary short about barrel organ players in Italy.
Serenata da un soldo
Documentary short about Italian soldiers stationed in Rome interacting with the population.