The fates of two couples – Lea and Andrea, around thirty, and Rocco and Cecilia, twenty years older – collide on the night Lea meets Rocco at a bar and starts having an affair with him in a hotel room. An ordinary case of infidelity, it would seem, but one which takes an unexpected turn when Lea insinuates herself into Rocco’s life, until their respective spouses are drawn in for a final showdown. DIRECTOR'SNOTES: I wrote the first draft of...

Boneheads are crude, racist culture vultures who appropriate the skinhead look to promote ultra-racist and nationalist attitudes. Luigi (Francesco Gheghi), the young protagonist of Francesco Costabile’s new domestic thriller Familia (2024), is a bonehead. He lives in Rome with his brother Alessandro (Marco Cicalese) and mother Licia (Barbara Ronchi), long separated from their abusive, criminal father Franco (Francesco Di Leva). Luigi engages in typical bonehead behavior, like hanging out with fascist Andrew Tate lookalikes, and eventually ends up in prison after stabbing...

In every family, there’s one person who steers the others’ emotional tone”, writer Michela Murgia would say. In this instance, it’s Blu (newcomer Daniele Scardini), a 9-year-old child who loves wearing his hair long and dressing as a girl. His father Lucio (Edoardo Pesce) and mother Elena (Valentina Lodovini), who are both progressive, inclusive and broad minded – going so far as to form a perfect extended family with Lucio’s first wife, played by Donatella Finocchiaro, and their eldest teenage daughter, Viola Gabriele – only...

Giuseppe Garibaldi embarked on the legendary Expedition of the Thousand from Quarto, accompanied by a wave of young idealists from every corner of Italy. Among his loyal officers was a new and notable figure—Colonel Vincenzo Giordano Orsini of Palermo. Among the many volunteers who joined Garibaldi's cause were two Sicilians: Domenico Tricò, a farmer who had migrated north, and Rosario Spitale, an illusionist. Upon landing in Sicily at Marsala, the Thousand immediately engaged the Bourbon army, whose numerical superiority was...