Botticelli

Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) is both a cultural icon and a lasting source of artistic inspiration. His famous female figures, like Venus and Primavera, have become part of our shared visual memory and influence artists worldwide. Berlin director and art historian Grit Lederer explores Botticelli’s life and work, focusing on the Gemäldegalerie’s impressive collection. The film examines how his iconic paintings continue to inspire art and advertising today. Experts reveal what makes his style unique and why his work was forgotten for centuries after his death. Contemporary artists such as French artist Orlan and American Michael Joaquin Grey present works inspired by Botticelli. The documentary traces Botticelli’s enduring impact from Florence through Paris and New York to Berlin.

Quando i tedeschi non sapevano nuotare

About Max

The intimate and passionate portrait of the late Max Croci in a documentary that recalls the human and cultural depth with the testimonies of friends and colleagues.

For the Love of Cats

In the small mountain town of Barga, Italy, a group of four filmmakers speak with local cat lovers and immerse themselves in the unique world of street-trotting felines and Gattaras.

Mr Funkis

Based on a series of interviews documentary film maker Anders Wahlgren made with architect Sven Markelius in 1969. Sven Markelius was one of the most radical architects in Sweden for many years. Since these interviews were the only recorded interviews made with Markelius we can get some insight into his philosophy 50 years later.

Il mio nome è Battaglia

Sophia Loren in Rome

Sophia Loren, who was born in Rome and lived there as a child, returns to the city that will forever be in her blood and gives her impressions of and reactions to the mosaic of Rome and the people she encounters there during her visit. She meets Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio de Sica as she visits the sights, affectionately commenting on the grandeur of the Eternal City and the irrepressible nature of its people.

National Geographic: Inside the Vatican

Provides a behind-the-scenes look, with unprecedented access, into life inside the Vatican. With rare footage of secret archives, private chapels and papal quarters, the program explores the Vatican's long, powerful history, and the unique traditions and ceremonies that have survived for nearly 2000 years. Accounts from Vatican officiants, historians and devoted individuals who work closely with the Pope John Paul II provide privilieged insight into the inner workings of one of the richest wonders of the world.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

Paolo Ventura - Vanishing Man

Italian photographer Paolo Ventura creates stories by giving life to the simplest of materials which he has gathered. He gave up a successful career as a fashion photographer because he just had to photograph the images that haunted him. Images that the artist had imagined as a child when his grandmother told him about her adventures during the war. In his studio, in a barn on top of a secluded mountain, he creates a timeless melancholic world that resonates the isolation in which he grew up. Ventura conquered the international art scene with his photography series War Souvenir and Winter Stories. His work is included in collections by renowned museums in Italy, France and the US.

Porn to Be Free

Italy, 1970. An increasing legion of harmless warriors begins a peaceful struggle for sexual freedom through pornography, shaking and shocking religious authorities and conservative political institutions. They are ironic, happy, crazy. They are dreamers, defenders of definitive communion between body and soul. But they were censored and humiliated. They were mistreated and arrested for demanding loud a new cultural renaissance.

White Terror

A video about Neo-Nazis originating in Sweden provides the starting point of an investigation of extremists' networks in Europe, Russia, and North America. Their propaganda is a message of hatred, war, and segregation.

Italomodern – Design

Warsaw: A City Divided

The history of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-43) as seen from both sides of the wall, its legacy and its memory: new light on a tragic era of division, destruction and mass murder thanks to the testimony of survivors and the discovery of a ten-minute film shot by Polish amateur filmmaker Alfons Ziółkowski in 1941.

Padre Pio

BBC TV movie about the life of the late Francesco Forgione, widely known as Padre Pio.

Will It Happen Again?

An account of Adolf Hitler's rise and fall, his relationship with Eva Braun and their days of leisure at the Berghof, their Bavarian residence.

Peninsula

This documentary explores the tranquil history of Italian surfing along with the passion and dedication of the pioneers who shaped it.

The Cultural History of Museums

From the cabinets of curiosities created in Italy during the 16th century to the prestigious cultural institutions of today, a history of museums that analyzes the social and political changes that have taken place over the centuries.

Climbing Iran

Nasim is a free climber, the only woman able to open new routes in Iran. She’s facing a double mountain to climb, both physical and cultural, as her passion collides with the strict policies concerning women freedom in her country. And she has a dream: open a new route in the Alps.

The Italian Character: The Story of a Great Italian Orchestra

The Italian Character: a film within music and about music. The Italian character is the story of one of the most renowned orchestras in the world, enriched by archive material of the last thirty years about the great conductors who have been performing on the most famous rostrum in Rome.