Franco Cristaldi is best defined by miles of filmic celluloid produced through decades of passionate commitments. He is literally tied to the high point of Italian cinema from the early 50s on. Just a few frames cut out of his documentaries or feature films give us an extraordinary record of the times and of a changing society. He often averred that “every film should be a prototype” thus experimenting diversified routes, courses; exploring new themes, whereby storylines may be mixed and turned about without ever depending on a repetitive model or genre thanks to previous successes, or following laws of marketing. Cinema is a factory of dreams, although Franco was more

A wonderful journey to discover the myth of a “unique” actress, made up wholly of precious and at times rare archive footage, commented by the words of Sophia Loren herself in over half a century of interviews and conversations on the most important times in her private life and her career. Made to celebrate an important birthday - the eightieth of this great actress and her immense appeal and talent- its really a ‘cult’ on a selection of all the interwiews collected from the 1950s to the present in the archives of Istituto Luce – Cinecittà and Rai Radiotelevisione Italiana. From the many films in which she was directed by a maestro like Vittorio De Sica, with 2014 marking the 40th anniversary of his death, to the Oscar® for her performance in Two Women, from the birth of her two children to her memories of working with Marcello Mastroianni, from working with Charlie Chaplin to receiving an Oscar® for her lifetime achievement.

The ‘love story’ between Walt Disney and Italy – the Country where the characters, comics and animated tales created by the great American artist and director are most famous – narrated in a mixed documentary, a combination of archive materials and commentaries by filmmakers, journalists, cartoonists, musicians, stylists, actors and actresses who had their lives and careers deeply influenced by Disney's imaginary world. Through archive materials, starting with Disney's first trip to Italy in 1935, Walt Disney and Italy – A love story, which introduces the upcoming film Saving Mr. Banks with Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson, celebrates the connection and reciprocal influence between Disney and our Country.

Maria, Matteo, Yole: three lives on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius, in an absolutely unique environment with a wealth of mythological, historical and literary associations. Maria lives and works on a flower farm and tree nursery below one of the Vesuvian villas, and is a discreet guardian of the volcano. Matteo, a painter, uses lava to make his works, bearing witness to a profound connection with the earth. Yole, a singer of “neo-melodic” music, manages to reconcile the free life of a young woman with a genuine devotion to the Madonna. Fron Locarno’s Festival last selection a tale about the proverbial fatalism of people from Naples…

Overlapping to a country divided into dialects, Italy, with a king who spoke French, fascism tried to build its own national language. Often this was an authoritarian and clumsy attempt rather than authoritative and credible. They discovered that the language of a nation is not built with the edicts. A funny and important journey in a lost language, not only through words but a special historical footage.

The factory is being shut down and workers are being fired, the umpteenth in the Turin area. Jobs are gone, the identity is gone, certainties are gone. Salvatore Brogna, a worker climbs up the factory tower out of protest or maybe only out of blind rage, threatening to throw himself down. Giorgio, a worker and shop steward whose nature and political beliefs are opposite those of Salvatore, get there to save him from falling. The third one, who is visually impaired and autistic, is a keeper who has been hired as member of a category enjoying special protections and he joins the other two heroically climbing the tower to keep them company. During the night, abandoned by everybody, desperately waiting for some journalists to arrive, these so different points of view on the world review the last thirty years of life of the Country, the years which led them to climb that dangerous tower. Waiting for somebody, anybody, while they are building a friendship without realizing it…