
Cristina Comencini
Directing
Known For

In late 1940s Italy, a mother makes the difficult decision to send her son to the north, where he catches glimpses of a new life away from poverty.
The Children's Train

In autumn 1943, in Gross-Partsch, 26-year-old Rosa, who had come from Berlin to stay with the parents of her husband Gregor, who was fighting on the Russian front, was taken by the SS to a mysterious place. Forced to taste a dish, she joins the group of tasters responsible for checking that the food destined for Hitler is not poisoned.
The Tasters

Enrico Bottini, an engineering student, prepares to serve as an officer when Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary. At the train station, he meets Garrone, an old friend from elementary school, and begins to reminisce on the values instilled to him by both school and his father.
Cuore

The five daughters of a famous actor, all from different mothers and different nationalities, get together on the 10th anniversary of his death for a celebration of his career.
Latin Lover

Sabina has a regular life. She is satisfied with her job and her love for Franco. Lately nightmares start disturbing her, and almost in the same time she discovers to be pregnant. Step by step she remembers her childhood spent within a severe middle-class family. But a big secret is hidden within her heart. Sabina wants to contact again her brother, a University teacher in the US, to try to understand what is happened in their past. What is the secret? She is determined to bring clarity and serenity in her life. She finally manages to free herself from her "beast in the heart".
Don't Tell

Through the childhood and adolescence of Signor Giacomo Casanova (from his memoirs), this is a description of how people lived in 18th-century Venice: their customs, habits, medicine, religion, and--most of all--the omnipresence of hypocrisy.
Giacomo Casanova: Childhood and Adolescence

Lucia and Maria are two best friends, who have known each other from the beginning of their life, but have very different tastes and behaviors. Lucia is done with men, Maria, on the contrary, cannot be without one. One night, the perfect man shows up in Maria's bed: handsome, sensible, mature and passionate.The next morning brings up misunderstandings and lies which make the two friends split up and take a break for themselves. Maybe that young man met by chance is really the one every woman is looking for, because with his simple theories he manages to paint the perfect picture of the two women's lives.
Something New

Italian-French costume dramedy that takes place in France in the end of 18th Century during the French Revolution. It is "The Marriage of Figaro" meets "The Dangerous Liaisons" and it tells the story of two women, Mathilde Seurat, the actress and Julie Renard, the aristocratic wife and a mother (Delphine Forest plays both) with the same face who came from the different parts of society and at one point exchanged their identities and their lives. The movie also features Giancarlo Giannini and great Vittorio Gassman.
The Amusements of Private Life

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

The complicated travails of several generations of Italian women provide the basis for this drama that is based on a novel by Susanna Tamaro. It begins with the peaceful death of Olga, the elderly family matriarch. Marta, her granddaughter returns from the US to attend the funeral and once in Olga's villa in Trieste, begins reading her grandmother's diary. Olga's story unfolds via flashback. As a young woman, Oldga had to marry Antonio a man she didn't love. Later she became passionately involved with a handsome doctor at the local spa. He impregnates her and shortly thereafter dies in a terrible car wreck. The result of their love is Illaria, who grows up to be terribly neurotic. She bears Marta and then she too dies in an automobile accident, leaving Marta to be raised by Olga.
Follow Your Heart

The story of the half-Jewish Ida Raimundo and her two sons Antonio and Giuseppe in Rome, during and immediately after the Second World War.
History

The story of Italian cinema under Fascism, a sophisticated film industry built around the founding of the CinecittĂ studios and the successful birth of a domestic star system, populated by very peculiar artists among whom stood out several beautiful, magnetic, special actresses; a dark story of war, drugs, sex, censorship and tragedy.
CinecittĂ Babilonia: Sex, Drugs and Black Shirts

Racial integration is Elena's profession and passion, not only filling her working day as a cultural mediator assisting immigrants, but spilling over into her home life as well. All too often her husband Carlo must attend charity events where he feels distinctly out of place. During one of these evenings, Carlo meets Nadine, a beautiful black woman.
Black and White

The lively goings-on of a modern family seen trough the eyes of a young girl just about to receive her first Communion.
The Best Day of My Life

Longtime Italian cinema star Stefania Sandrelli (The First Beautiful Thing) is Alba, the mother of two very different adult sons. While Giorgio is a playboy who constantly cheats on his wife, Leonardo (Luca Argentero, Eat Pray Love) is always unlucky in love. When Leonardo finally meets the woman of his dreams, Sara, he brings her home to meet the family, but it appears this is not the first time that Sara has met Giorgio. Directed by Luca Lucini and stars Luca Argentero, Alessandro Gassman and Stefania Sandrelli.
Woman of My Life

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…

In this romantic story, a couple (Michel Serrault and Virna Lisi) who have been married for over forty years are forced to separate, one to each of their two children's families, when they can no longer pay the rent on their longtime apartment. Absence, in this case, refreshes their memory of the love they have shared, and they take to meeting one another furtively in hotel rooms for sex and affection. One summer, as each of their daughters families takes them on separate vacations, they have had enough, and elope, finding contentment as lighthouse keepers off the coast of Sicily.
Merry Christmas... Happy New Year

Cristina Comencini defines the film as a "thriller of the soul." It's the story of a woman who returns to Italy from the US to attend the funeral of her late father, an American admiral living in Naples. Here she meets a man who seems to know too many things about her.
Tornare

A young lawyer returns home and discovers that a man has committed suicide jumping through a window of his house. His wife, Maria, says that she let the unknown man enter because he said the lawyer was the only one who could help him. Bernardo start to investigate about the man and about the reasons of his suicide.
La fine è nota

Martina lives in the Rome's zoo, because her father is the guardian. She becomes friend with a young Slavic escaped from a gypsy camp. When the police arrives searching for the kid, they run away riding an elephant!