Holocaust in Italy/Italian Holocaust Films
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- DirectorAnsano Giannarelli
- DirectorRuggero Gabbai
- DirectorFranco MolèStarsRay LovelockMartine BrochardSilvia DionisioOberdan Rossi is half Jewish and a fascist. After coming back from the Ethiopian war, he becomes disillusioned and works as a journalist.
- DirectorChristian DuguayStarsAlessandra MastronardiMarco FoschiMiguel Herz-KestranekPapacy of Pius XII focusing on years during World War Two.
- DirectorMaurizio ZaccaroStarsAndrea OsvártLotte VerbeekElise SchaapThree Dutch girls become famous as close harmony singers in Mussolini's Italy. When the war breaks out, suddenly questions are asked about their background and the deeper meaning of the lyrics in their songs.
- StarsStefano SantospagoManuela ArcuriGabriel GarkoIn the Rome of the '30s lives Nito Valdi, a difficult boy just out of the reformatory, who works for a boss in the area with his friend Tony.
- DirectorAlberto NegrinStarsRosabell Laurenti SellersEmilio SolfrizziMiklós SzurdiFreely inspired by Alison Leslie Gold's "Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend," the film tells of Anne Frank and her friend, Hanneli Goslar, their first meeting in Amsterdam, their daily lives, the German occupation and their sudden separation when the Frank family went into hiding. Music by Ennio Morricone. In Italian, with subtitles.
- DirectorCarlo LizzaniStarsMajlinda AgajEugenio AllegriMarta BifanoHow will the Germans react to the armistice of the 8th of September 1943, due to which Italy betrays them and sides with the allied forces? This is the distressing questions that a group of 16 Italian - Greek Jews evacuated at The Meina Hotel ask themselves. Hotel Meina, named after the town of Meina at Lake Maggiore, run by the Benars, a family of Turkish Jews. The grown-ups' questions are toned down by the light-heartiness of the two youngsters, Noa and Julien who are in love and full of hope in their future. The uncertainty is broken by the arrival of an SS detachment conducted by Krassler. The sixteen Jews are kept in isolation in the hotel and the never ending wait begins full of uncertainties, despair, fear and hope. Noa and Julien's love is countered by the attraction that pushes the enigmatic Krassler, uncontrollable in his Nazi faith, towards Cora, a fascinating German who is passing through, and seemingly naive and superficial. Krassler, a man both weak and inhumane, tries to pursue her relentlessly ignoring that she is in Italy to secretly help a victim of political persecution to flee the country unharmed and to find refuge in Switzerland, where the woman lives with a double-dealing man who works for the German Embassy and is also in contact with the underground anti- Nazi movement. While Noa and Julien live their very last days of love, Krassler and Cora stage a very dangerous act. Cora, having successfully carried out her mission in Switzerland, decides to go back to The Meina Hotel to help the Jews, but her escape plan is thwarted by a telegram coming from Milan: Krassler has to immediately eliminate the prisoners. Cora is able to get Noa to escape while Julien will follow the same destiny as the other Jews imprisoned: to be shot and thrown in the lake. This is the first Italian Nazi massacre of Jews. Noa's scream of pain, while she is sailing towards the Swiss shore, as she comes across the bodies of her friends that are floating on the surface, alternates with Cora's outburst against Krassler. The woman has trapped him in a greenhouse and shouts the truth at him: Germany will become a better country rising from the ashes of Nazism.
- DirectorMarco Tullio GiordanaStarsMonica BellucciAlessio BoniLuca ZingarettiThe story of rising, fancy life and falling of Osvaldo Valenti and Luisa Ferida, two of the stars of the Italian cinema during the Fascism period of Italy.
- DirectorAlberto SironiStarsGiuseppe FiorelloLuigi Maria BurruanoBiancamaria D'AmatoAfter enlisting himself in the well-known Italian police corps, "Carabinieri", and after becoming friend with the young Guido, at the breakout of the war, Salvo D'acquisto leaves Naples and Italy to fight in the African war, between Fascist Italy and Great Britain. However Guido has changed and he has fallen in love with a young African Muslim girl; Salvo, who has promised to Guido's sister to protect him during the war in Africa, cannot convince him to give this love up. Besides during a patrol drive an English aircraft throws itself on them and shoots them and Guido remains dead in the desert, preventing Salvo from bringing him back safe and sound to Italy. When he goes back to Italy on furlough, the sister weeps and gets angry with him and she cannot accept the love of Salvo anymore. However this tragedy opens the eyes of the policeman Salvo again and he realizes through the words of the anti-fascist friend Walter, whose dad professor has been suspended by the teaching at university for turning down the card of Fascist Party (necessary to keep state jobs), that not only the war is going badly for Mussolini. In the meantime in 1943 Walter is also saved by Salvo and the sister of Guido from a deportation train to Germany. Salvo in the end is compelled as a soldier to cooperate with Germans. It happens that some German soldiers turn out to be killed by an explosion of bombs, which have been left in the barracks of Finance's guards (another military police corps like carabinieri, whose task is the one of fiscal and financial control,who are also employed in war expeditions); The Germans soon resort to the retaliation and took civilians to be shot, because the guilty ones will never be found and the German commanders will be subject to enquiry and shooting by German high command: Salvo asks to the Germans for the possibility of saving the prisoners, who haven't any guilt, and even if he knows that Germans realize his innocence in a small village southern from Rome he offers his life, and he will be executed, forcing the Germans to set the civilians free; till now apart from members of military police, who have fallen in actions during the previous wars and peace-keeping operations of the so-called Arma dei Carabinieri, Salvo D'Acquisto is recognized as the Hero of the Corps and his portrayal is hung in every office and barracks of this military corps and a lot of barracks are named after him.
- DirectorFerzan ÖzpetekStarsGiovanna MezzogiornoMassimo GirottiRaoul BovaOverburdened and stuck in a greying marriage, Giovanna takes to caring for the Jewish Holocaust survivor her husband brings home. As she begins to reflect on her life, she turns to the man who lives across from her ...
- DirectorLeone PompucciStarsKen DukenJasmine TrincaEnnio FantastichiniThis is a true story about 40 Jewish children on their way to Palestine who were blocked by the German and Italian occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941. Before finding a haven at Villa Emma in Nonantola in northern Italy, where they arrived on June 17, 1942, the children spent several adventurous months in Slovenia, caught up in the ongoing fight between the partisans and the Italian army. In April 1943, another 33 children, some from the Balkans, others from France, joined the original group. All were orphans who had lost their parents in concentration camps and had subsequently been smuggled out of Germany by Recha Freier, a well-known Zionist. The group ranged in age from six to 21 and settled in at Villa Emma with their chaperones and teachers, Josef Indig, Marco Schoky and pianist Boris Jochverdson. The children lived in modest, but quite acceptable conditions. They attended class and courses in agriculture and craftsmanship prepared them for their impending departure for Palestine and a future on a Kibbutz. The orphans were under police supervision and forbidden to go out alone, but even so Nonantola took their plight to heart and firm friendships were established between the townspeople and the young Jews. After Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, 1943, German troops arrived in Nonantola and the situation changed dramatically. In less than 48 hours, Villa Emma was abandoned and the fugitive boys and girls found refuge in the seminary of the Abbey, and in the homes of local farmers, craftsman and shopkeepers. The local priest, Father Arrigo Beccari, showed great courage in these circumstances. The threat of raids by the German police provoked much anxiety and between September 28 and October 16, 1943 all the young refugees were successfully smuggled into Switzerland, fording the fast-flowing Tresa River under cover of darkness. In Switzerland, Zionist organizations hosted them in an institute in Bex in the Rodano Valley and it was from there that most of the group reached Palestine in May 1945 after an odyssey that had lasted five years. One of the boys who contracted TB and had to be admitted to a sanatorium was unable to escape and his name appears on a list of deportees to Auschwitz. Subsequently, Arrigo Beccari and Giuseppe Moreali, the local doctor in Nonantola, were cited in the Yad Vashem for their courage and they have their own tree in the Avenue of Just Men.
- DirectorAlberto NegrinStarsLuca ZingarettiJérôme AngerAmanda SandrelliThe real story of Giorgio Perlasca (Luca Zingaretti). During the 1920s he was an Italian Fascist supporter, fighting in Africa and in the Spanish Civil War where he received safe conduct credential for Spanish embassies. After some years, disillusioned by fascism, he became a supplier for the Italian army. During the war he was in business in Budapest. He lives an easy life there, well introduced into the Hungarian high society, without any problems being caused by the war. When the Germans occupied Hungary, in 1944, he escaped to the Spanish embassy in Budapest using his old safe conduct credential and becoming a Spanish citizen, changing his name to Jorge Perlasca. He starts working as a diplomat there. When Sanz Briz (Geza Tordy), the Spanish consul, is removed, Perlasca immediately substitutes him, like if he was officially appointed from Spanish authorities. All the Germans and the Hungarian authorities believe him. In his new fake assignment, he starts immediately to hide, shield, and feed thousands of Jews issuing fake Spanish safe conducts for the Jews of Sephardic origin. He is in contact with Raoul Wallenberg, another hero of that time. The two, together with other volunteers, running incredible risks had saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from a tragic death. Incredibly, Perlasca succeeded to save two boys directly from the hands of Adolf Eichmann at the train station. This hero, after the war, was completely forgotten, and his story comes out just in the 1980s because some of the Hungarian Jews wanted to meet him again.
- DirectorLiliana CavaniStarsFabrizio GifuniSonia BergamascoStefano ScandalettiThe biography of one of most influential Italian politicians, through the dramatic years of fascism, WWII and country economic and social rebuilding. First victim of political persecution, at end premier during the transition from monarchy to republic, De Gasperi was one of the writers of the Italian Constitution, and a thinker capable to invoke an European union when the ruins of war were still burning.
- DirectorGiacomo BattiatoStarsPiotr AdamczykMalgorzata BelaKen DukenThe life of the pope John-Paul II, from his youth as a writer, actor, and athlete in war-torn occupied Poland to his election as Pope at the age of 58.
- StarsChristopher LeeBen GazzaraDaniele PecciFollowing the premature death of his mother, Karol Wojtyla is brought up by his father in the Polish city of Krakow during the first half of the 20th century. An outstanding student with a magnetic personality, he dreams of becoming an actor. When his homeland is invaded by the Nazis in 1939, he and his friends secretly oppose the systematic persecution of their Polish culture. But, with the death of his father and the lacerating solitude which accompanies this loss, Karol's personal "resistance" takes on a new form and he decides to follow a priestly vocation. At the end of the war, Poland falls into the grip of Soviet totalitarianism. The newly ordained Karol is constantly surrounded by young people whom he teaches to safeguard and defend human dignity. He could be considered a serious threat to the regime, but the Communist authorities merely see him as an innocuous intellectual and even encourage his nomination for the position of bishop. Karol Wojtila is the youngest bishop in the history of Poland. When he is appointed Cardinal, Karol is more intransigent in the spiritual guidance of his homeland, becoming a real and proper thorn in the side of the Communist government. And the whole Catholic world begins to wonder who he is. On the death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, the cardinals of the Conclave decide that Woytjla is the right man to replace him. Thus Karol leaves his beloved Poland to become Pope John Paul II. His free, unconventional attitude alarms several prelates, but immediately wins the hearts of the people. In an age paralyzed by fear and ideology, the new Pope once again shows everybody the overwhelming fascination of Christianity: this is the beginning of a deep change, which will affect the whole world and the Church itself, as a sort of "contagion". He miraculously survives an attempt on his life in 1981, and not even this event curbs his mission. Thanks to his unshakable tenacity, Pope John Paul II helps to change the course of history: the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 decrees the collapse of Communism. But the Pope does not stop being the voice of Christ, even among the injustices of the capitalistic Western world, and even among the provocations and challenges of modern times. The Great Jubilee of 2000 is the most moving evidence of his mission: 3 million young people in love with the Pope gather in Rome, bringing with them the whole world's hopes. This world has learned to look to him, now old and shaky, as a ray of light in the heart of darkness.
- DirectorAndrea FrazziAntonio FrazziStarsIsabella RosselliniJeroen KrabbéBarbara Enrichi1943, an estate north of Firenze. The weight of the world is on the shoulders of Penny, who's about 10. An orphan, she must watch over her little sister when they go to live with her aunt and uncle. Penny's a Catholic, and worries about her uncle's soul. He's Jewish, progressive and a free thinker, a fair boss, and devoted to his family. He can be stern, so Penny also worries that she'll never please him and that he won't love her. Then, after the Allied forces land in Sicily and the Germans begin their retreat, Penny must worry about her uncle's life. She tries logic and appeals to human decency. Can a child keep the sky from falling?
- DirectorRicky TognazziStarsHans MathesonMélanie ThierryLee WilliamsCostanza is drinking a beer in a Prague pub, a summer night in 1968, while a violinist enters and starts playing a "canone inverso" for her. It is not a case, that music and that violin have a story behind that could concern her. It is the love story between Jeno Varga and the music, between Jeno and Sophie. It is also the friendship story with David on the background of WWII and the 'Prague spring' 25 years later. Music and Love the most powerful link that could resist through the time.
- DirectorEttore ScolaStarsDiego AbatantuonoSergio CastellittoGérard DepardieuTwo textile traders, with the shop close to one another, fight for the supremacy of their own business during the racial laws in Italy.
- DirectorClaver SalizzatoStarsDaniele LiottiLiberto RabalMandala TaydeThe massacre of the Acqui Division in Cephalonia during World War II.
- DirectorRoberto FaenzaStarsJean-Hugues AngladeJuliet AubreyJenner Del VecchioAmsterdam, 1942: four-year-old Jonah and his parents are deported to the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in Germany where the child learns to cope with an incomprehensible world of war, brutality and persecution.
- DirectorFrancesco RosiStarsJohn TurturroRade SerbedzijaMassimo GhiniBased on Primo Levi's autobiographical "The Reawakening".
- DirectorRoberto BenigniStarsRoberto BenigniNicoletta BraschiGiorgio CantariniWhen an open-minded Jewish waiter and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp.