La voce senza volto

Five young men dream of success as they drift lazily through life in a small Italian village. Fausto, the group's leader, is a womanizer; Riccardo craves fame; Alberto is a hopeless dreamer; Moraldo fantasizes about life in the city; and Leopoldo is an aspiring playwright. As Fausto chases a string of women, to the horror of his pregnant wife, the other four blunder their way from one uneventful experience to the next.

In Italy, Checco Dal Monte manages a troupe of traveling performers with plenty of heart but minimal talent. At a small town engagement, he encounters the starry-eyed, gorgeous Lily Antonelli, and hires her as a dancer on the show. Vivacious Lily quickly sells out crowds and earns the resentment of Checco's mistress, Melina Amour, but the fledgling performer has far bigger ambitions and soon sets her sights on a higher-profile role.

In a small village two twin brothers are of opposite characters. One is mayor of the town, gruff and precise. The other is totally different from his brother and loves the good life and beautiful women.

Three episodes held together by a common element: a car rented by three different characters.

Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life. "Illibatezza" (Rossellini): The hostess Anna Maria, to dissuade an aggressive suitor who prefers maternal tendencies, assumes an unscrupulous attitude, obeying the suggestions of her distant boyfriend. "The New World" (Godard): The deflagration of an atomic bomb causes strange effects on the inhabitants of a city. "La ricotta" (Pasolini): During the filming of a film about a religious subject, the extra Stracci dies hanging on the cross due to an indigestion of ricotta. "Il pollo spante" (Gregoretti): While an expert illustrates to a board of merchants the most modern techniques to increase sales through the discovery of the secret self of the average consumer, the human story of a bourgeois who, following these suggestions, focuses on the purchase of a plot of land in the countryside.

An unscrupulous theatrical agent introduces his latest "discovery" to an elderly baron who becomes infatuated with her.

Former batsman Carlo Mezzetti, who has been left homeless with his daughter Annuccia, takes advantage of favorable situations and legal loopholes to find temporary accommodation, illegally occupying vacant houses.

An Italian industrialist who has made a fortune in America returns to Italy planning to make a film about a beautiful woman who smiled at him before he left his home country years before.

Four corrupted fascist libertines round up 9 teenage boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of sadistic physical, mental and sexual torture.

A comedy with lots of Neapolitan songs and shots of the Bay of Naples finds Maria Morelli unable to marry her singing sailor/lover, Giacomo because her father, Don Salvatdore Morelli objects. She can't elope because her father has an heart ailment and uses it to hold Maria. Giacomo misunderstands and takes off on a global singing tour.

Piccolo Hotel (aka Small Hotel) uses the titular establishment to weave together a vast tapestry of subplots, a la Grand Hotel. The guests include a domineering mother (Lola Braccini), her petulant daughter (Bianca Doria) and the daughter's gigolo boyfriend (Guido Notari). Also on hand is a worldly vamp (Laura Nucci) who also falls for the boyfriend, and the chronic-gambler son (Andrea Checchi) of the hotel's self-sacrificing landlady (Emma Grammatica). Though the film is set in Budapest, the characters are more Mediterranean than mittel-European. Piccolo Hotel was one of the entries in the Vienna Biennial Film Festival.

Purif is distraught when her lover is betrothed to another. When she summons the old ways to curse him, her erratic behavior is interpreted as demonic possession, and the villagers turn against her with physical and sexual violence.

Messalina was the Roman noblewoman who inveigled ageing emperor Claudio into marriage. Once ensconced on the throne, Messalina launched a reign of terror that shook the empire to its very foundations. The subject of countless film treatments, Rome's most villified empress is herein played by British actress Belinda Lee.

Based on the events from the Italian civil war. In 1860's, a member of a guerrilla force captures a colonel from the opposing army and later leads one of the sides to victory.

A nomad mercenary on a high-tech motorcycle helps bring about the downfall of the evil Orwellian government, the Omega.

A middle-aged plumber quits his job and questions his life after seeing somebody his own age suddenly die from a heart attack on his way to work.

Progressive schoolteachers Landi and Anna have a profound influence on two of their young students, Mirella and Franco. The two kids are enamored with one another and decide to experiment with some of the knowledge they've gleaned in the classroom.

A magistrate saves a young woman from drowning and they fall in love.

Esterina, a young war orphan, joins two truck drivers, Gino and Piero, on their trips along Northern Italy. She wants to find her luck in the big city, but her dreams turn into disappointing experiences. She falls in love with Gino but he is not interested in her, until she disappears...

A demented nun sliding through morphine addiction into madness, while presiding over a regime of lesbianism, torture and death. Sister Gertrude is the head nurse/nun in a general hospital, whose increasingly psychotic behavior endangers the staff and patients around her.

A schoolgirl was murdered seven years ago, and the case was never solved; now, the murderer seems to be back.

The last days of Napoleon on the island of Saint Helena.

When young Adriana gives birth to her daughter, she understands that her baby's father won't come back to her. He is, in fact, a playboy, Diego. Years pass by and Adriana is now happy with her new job in a beauty salon, where also works the shy accountant Mario Fabbrini, who soon takes to liking her, unaware of her situation. But one day Diego comes to the salon with the woman he's about to marry, sees Adriana and tries to speak with her, but she hides into Fabbrini's office. Diego then comes to the salon again, proposing Adriana to become his lover, but she refuses him. Fabbrini in the meantime overhears everything from outside the office...

Daniele Orsenigo, a young Venetian fighting for the unification of Italy, has an important message to deliver to the Carboneria of Parma.

Traces the life of Anna Magnani, her creations, her successes, her triumphs, her boycotted career, her nonconformism, her anxieties, her generosity ... Punctuated with photos that tell her career in theater and cinema, Extracts of films, this documentary portrait also gives the floor to his friends and relatives, from Roberto Rossellini to Marcello Mastroianni, through Federico Fellini.