#RomaFF12 | Lineup of the Retrospective “The Italian School”

“The Italian school” – a name first coined by André Bazin – is the title of the 2017 Retrospective curated by Mario Sesti, taking place during the Rome Film Fest at the Cinema Trevi, organized in collaboration with the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale (Experimental Cinematography Centre – National Film Archive) and Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
The retrospective means to highlight the film genres reinterpreted by Italian cinema (from the Western to the Thriller), and the ones that it invented (such as the Peplum), by exploring the fundamental, but often lesser-known, work of some of its leading figures, guided by a thousand-year-old tradition of “good taste” and aesthetic talent, in a survey of the skills of the technicians and craftsmen, the cinematographers and editors, the set and costume designers who have made the history of Italian cinema.
The journey suggested to the public interrogates modern solitude and the city (Umberto D. and His Days Are Numbered), an imaginative invention of the past and of culture (My Son, the Hero and For Love and Gold), the sacred nature of men and things from a secular point of view (The Gospel According to Saint Matthew and The Flowers of St. Francis), the epitome of form and concentration of taste in the images by artists and craftsmen of the country with the widest artistic tradition in the world (The Damned and Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom), entertainment as pure energy and action, speed and physical conflict (Black Eagle and Caliber 9), cinema as the dogged search for truth and acceptance of its mystery (Salvatore Giuliano and 8½).

CINEMA AS URBAN WANDERING AND DAILY DIGRESSION
UMBERTO D.
by Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 1952, 89’
Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casillo, Lina Gennari, Ileana Simova, Memmo Carotenuto
I GIORNI CONTATI | HIS DAYS ARE NUMBERED
by Elio Petri, Italy, 1962, 106’
Cast: Salvo Randone, Franco Sportelli, Regina Bianchi, Lando Buzzanca, Paolo Ferrari, Vittorio Caprioli
PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW/THE WORLD IS A PARTY: LET’S LIVE IT TOGETHER
SALVATORE GIULIANO
by Francesco Rosi, Italy, 1962, 118’
Cast: Salvo Randone, Frank Wolff, Pietro Cammarata, Federico Zardi, Mario Lorito Fricano, Nando Cicero
8½
by Federico Fellini, Italy, France, 1963, 138’
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, Claudia Cardinale, Rossella Falk, Barbara Steele, Guido Alberti, Mario Pisu, Caterina Boratto, Annibale Ninchi, Edra Gale, Giuditta Rissone
SETS, COSTUMES, MAKEUP: THE GREAT ART OF THE CRAFTSMEN IN CINEMA

LA CADUTA DEGLI DEI | THE DAMNED
by Luchino Visconti, Italy, Federal Republic of Germany, 1969, 155’
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, Helmut Griem, Helmut Berger, Renaud Verley, Umberto Orsini
SALÒ O LE 120 GIORNATE DI SODOMA | SALÒ, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM
by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, France, 1975, 116’
Cast: Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Uberto Paolo Quintavalle, Aldo Valletti, Caterina Boratto, Elsa De Giorgi
THE NON-PROFESSIONALS, THE INEXHAUSTIBLE LANDSCAPE OF BODIES, THE WORLD OF THE SACRED
IL VANGELO SECONDO MATTEO | THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW
by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1964, 137’
Cast: Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso, Susanna Pasolini, Marcello Morante, Mario Socrate, Settimio Di Porto, Alfonso Gatto
FRANCESCO GIULLARE DI DIO | THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS
by Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1950, 91’
Cast: Aldo Fabrizi, Arabella Lemaître, fra’ Nazario Gerardi, padre Roberto Sorrentino
SPEED, EDITING, ACTION
AQUILA NERA | BLACK EAGLE
by Riccardo Freda, Italy, 1946, 109’
Cast: Rossano Brazzi, Irasema Dilian, Gino Cervi, Rina Morelli, Paolo Stoppa, Harry Feist, Yvonne Sanson, Gina Lollobrigida
MILANO CALIBRO 9 | CALIBER 9
by Fernando Di Leo, Italy, 1972, 92’
Cast: Gastone Moschin, Mario Adorf, Barbara Bouchet, Frank Wolff, Lionel Stander, Gigi Pistilli, Ivo Garrani, Mario Novelli
THE FANTASTIC STORY: THE INFINITE ADVENTURE OF INVENTING THE PAST
ARRIVANO I TITANI | MY SON, THE HERO
by Duccio Tessari, Italy, France, 1962, 120’
Cast: Giuliano Gemma, Antonella Lualdi, Pedro Armendáriz, Jacqueline Sassard, Serge Nubret, Gérard Séty
L’ARMATA BRANCALEONE | FOR LOVE AND GOLD
by Mario Monicelli, Italy, 1966, 120’
Cast: Vittorio Gassman, Catherine Spaak, Gian Maria Volontè, Maria Grazia Buccella, Barbara Steele, Enrico Maria Salerno