TOL Cannes Film Festival 2023 I am three Italian films in competition. Kidnapped by Marco Bellocchio The sun of the future by Nanni Moretti e The chimera by Alice Rohrwacher. Three heavy names in Italian cinema who have been entrusted, symbolically and practically, with the task of bringing home the Golden Palm for best film. Acknowledgment that Italy hasn’t won for 22 yearsthat is, from the time of Son’s room by Nanni Moretti. And before him, what were the other directors who raised the prize high?
Cannes Film Festival: Italian films that have won the Palme d’Or
Son’s room (2001)
The movie of Nanni Moretti is one of the most touching filmed by the Roman director and almost certainly its more famous internationally.
Story of a middle-class family devastated by the unexpected death of the firstborn, Son’s room triumphed at the Cannes Film Festival and launched the career of a promising, and still very young, Jasmin Trinca. It’s therelast Italian film to win the Palme d’Or.
Nanni Moretti and Laura Morante in a scene from “The Son’s Room”.
Rome open city (1945)
Masterpiece by Roberto Rossellinithe movie is the progenitor of the neorealist trend who made such a fortune in Italy and also abroad.
Co-protagonist, together with a magnificent Aldo Fabrizi, an unforgettable Anna Magnani as a widow that will end tragically killed in an attempt to save from arrest the partner who will have to marry the next day. An extraordinary film that denounces the drama of the German occupation in Italy and which will yield to Rossellini the Grand Prix of the festival (at the time the award had not yet been renamed the “Palma d’Or”).
“Rome open city”.
The Leopard (1963)
Taken from the namesake novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusathe movie of Luchino Visconti tell her transformations that have taken place in life and society in Sicily during the resurrection. From the end of the Bourbon Kingdom to the creation of the Kingdom of Italy.
Sumptuous and with an almost opera-like structure, The Leopard can boast an unforgettable cast consisting of Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon.
A formidable trio of actors who, together with their characters, have remained in the collective imagination. Like some very famous scenes, the final waltz to Valguarnera palace in Palermo above all. Filming started a few weeks ago a new adaptation of Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel. A miniseries produced by Netflix and with Kim Rossi Stuart, Deva Cassel And Saul Nanni in the roles of Lancaster, Cardinale and Delon respectively.
Claudia Cardinale in “The Leopard”.
Master father (1977)
Inspired by autobiographical novel by Gavino Leddaand directed by the brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, tells of the redemption of a young Sardinian from the head of the family who, when he was only six years old, he snatched him from school to make him a pastor.
The film, very hard but at the same time visually poeticwon the Palme d’Or hands down but despite this, received highly negative reviews by many Sardinians. Offended by the “bad” representation of their motherland. In the cast even a very young, and then unknown, Nanni Moretti. That will win the Palme d’Or 24 years after with Son’s room.
Omero Antonutti and Saverio Marconi in “Padre Padre”. (RAI)
Miracle in Milan (1951)
Neorealist fairy tale written and directed by Victor De Sicathe film narrates life in the Milanese slums of the suburbs of the young orphan Totò. Found by a beggar under a cabbage and that, in the film’s finale, will fly on a broomstick in search of a better life.
An unforgettable scene that inspired the flying bicycles of ET the extraterrestrial directed by Steven Spielberg and which also strongly influenced a great writer like Gabriel García Márquez.
Inventor in literature of that “magic realism” that will be the stylistic signature of novels like One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Brunella Bovo and Francesco Golisano in “Miracle in Milan”.
The working class goes to heaven (1971)
Directed by Elio Petri and played by a highly inspired Gian Maria Volontéthe film tells in grotesque tones the daily life of Lulù, manovale in a factory. Who, after having an accident at work, becomes aware of problems with his working condition.
A movie that it made even the most radical left turn up their noses of the time while the right-wing critics, who Petri could not stand, praised him. Like the jury president of the Cannes Film Festival Joseph Losey who wanted personally deliver the prize in the hands of Petri.
Gian Maria Volontè in “The working class goes to heaven”.
Ladies and gentlemen (1966)
Ex aequo winner with A man, a woman by Claude Lelouch, the film by Peter Germi it is one of most shining examples of Italian comedy. Starring Gastone Moschin and a crazy woman Virna Lisiyoung and beautiful cashier of a bar.
Set in an unspecified Venetian city, it tells the story of some people middle-class professionals which, behind an impeccable respectabilityhides a thick texture of mutual betrayals.
Gastone Moschin and Virna Lisi in “Ladies & Gentlemen”.
Blow Up (1967)
Movie poster of Swinging London from the late 60s, the masterpiece of Michelangelo Antonioni is a very atypical whodunit about a fashion photographer who thinks he has seen a murder from a photographic enlargement.
A film between the psychedelic and the existential thriller with an extremely cool cast: from the protagonist David Hemmings – which we will find again years later in Deep red – to the very young e semi newcomer Vanessa Redgrave. Not to mention the splendid model, an icon of the time, Verushka than in the opening scene of the film simulate sexual intercourse with the protagonist during a photo session.
David Hemmings and Veruschka in “Blow Up”.
The hoof tree (1978)
Set in the Bergamo countryside, the film by Ermanno Olmi tells with poetry, and sometimes violence, the life of four peasant families at the end of the 19th century.
An almost religious fresco, punctuated by the changing of the seasons, performed by non-professional actors and spoken in dialect that in Cannes left the audience and the jury agape in amazement. The hoof tree also had a huge worldwide success despite the more than three hours of duration and some even uncomfortable the theory of the collective unconscious of Jung to explain this triumph. Indeed, the film would “awaken” the peasant origins of each of us.
“The tree of hooves”.
The sweet life (1960)
Set in Rome at the end of the 50s full of American actors and various adventurers, the film by Federico Felliniin addition to winning the Palme d’Or, also came nominated for four Academy Awards. Taking one home for i best costumes.
With a Marcello Mastroianni unforgettable as a worldly news reporter and many scenes that have entered the collective imagination by right. Like the one, very famous, with Anita Ekberg at the Trevi Fountain.
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