Luisa Spagnoli

Parthenope, born in the sea near Naples in 1950, is beautiful, enigmatic, and intelligent. She is shamelessly courted by many. However, beauty comes at a cost.

An American girl on vacation in Italy finds an unanswered "letter to Juliet" -- one of thousands of missives left at the fictional lover's Verona courtyard, which are typically answered by the "secretaries of Juliet" -- and she goes on a quest to find the lovers referenced in the letter.

A three-part anthology about love and sexuality: a menage-a-trois between a couple and a young woman on the coast of Tuscany; an advertising executive under enormous pressure at work, who, during visits to his psychiatrist, is pulled to delve into the possible reasons why his stress seems to manifest itself in a recurring erotic dream; a story of unrequited love about a beautiful, 1960s high-end call girl in an impossible affair with her young tailor.

In postwar Rome, a working-class woman dreams of a better future for herself and her daughter while facing abuse at the hands of her domineering husband. When a mysterious letter arrives, she discovers the courage to change the circumstances of her life.

In 1970s Rome, a filmmaker gathers actresses for a new project, which triggers memories of his past working in a Roman costume shop, run by Alberta and Gabriella, navigating personal and professional challenges while creating costumes for a major film.

Since he was a child, Orpheus has imagined stories about an abandoned villa across the street from his house. A solitary and visionary pianist, during an evening at the Polypus — the club where he plays — he meets Eura’s gaze. An unconditional love blossoms between them, but she’s concealing a secret. Then she disappears. One evening, Orpheus sees her enter a small door on Via Saterna, in front of the villa. He follows her. Before the threshold, he encounters the Green Man, an enigmatic figure who seems to know the mysteries of that passageway. Once through the door, Orpheus enters a visionary afterlife...

An actor past his prime gives drama lessons to prisoners in an attempt to stage "Waiting for Godot."

In 1980s Naples, an awkward teen struggling to find his place experiences heartbreak and liberation after he's inadvertently saved from a freak accident by football legend Diego Maradona.

An acclaimed novelist struggles to write an analysis of love in one of three stories, each set in a different city, that detail the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.

At the end of the 19th century, in a small village in the Apennines, in a house lost in the middle of a valley, live Alessandro and Pietro, two very different but very close brothers. The two children, aged eleven and thirteen, carefree and full of energy, live like two wild animals, always getting into trouble and spending their days racing carts, diving into the river, and stealing from the cellar. When their mother dies, their father sells his last possessions to buy his sons two beautiful, untamed foals, Baio and Sauro. As adults, while Alessandro feels a growing desire to cross the mountains and go far away, Pietro wants to become a breeder and live with Veronica, the girl he loves.

The fates of an apparently random group of strangers who each come into contact with a mysterious figure who they believe possesses the power to grant any wish, in return for which they must carry out a task he assigns them.

June 1944. In the newly liberated Rome, Roberto Rossellini and Sergio Amidei decide, against all odds, to make an unprecedented, true-to-life film on the tragic events that occurred during the Nazi occupation: Rome, Open City .

In 1967, during the making of “La Chinoise,” film director Jean-Luc Godard falls in love with 19-year-old actress Anne Wiazemsky and marries her.

Alice and Tommaso have been together for fifteen years; they don’t have children, he‘s a musician, she’s an actress. Invited to dinner for an announcement, their friends think it’s going to be a marriage announcement, but instead discover that decided to break up: but without drama or emotional rifts, staying friends with each other. A legitimate but naive ambition. Love stories end, because people change. And no change is, nor can it be, painless.

The story of the young Franco Battiato’s journey, from Sicily to his arrival in Milan, exploring the encounters and pivotal moments along the path to success, right up to his return to his beloved Sicily. The account of an inner journey in which the artist’s nature, already inclined towards spirituality, evolves into a more conscious quest.

An Italian family welcomes a little girl fleeing the Sarajevo war.

Antonio, who fled Naples many years ago, has built a family and a successful career in Milan, far from his mother Angela — a woman excessive in both her virtues and her flaws, irresistible, old-fashioned and hostile like few others — who has come to visit for Christmas and seems determined to stay. Christmas Eve dinner becomes an emotional battlefield, at once comic and fierce, bringing to the surface a past of impositions and misunderstandings. With a stubborn capon that refuses to end up in the pot, a daughter whose arrival remains uncertain, and an unexpected distinguished guest, the evening turns into a reckoning between mother and son destined to change the meaning of their bond forever: a love that burns like a fire within, one that never dies out — not even by leaving.

"Nicola, where the sun rises" - Tells the true story of the transfer, from Myra (today Demre in Turkey ) to Bari , of the relics of St. Nicholas. 62 sailors arrive in Lycia aboard 3 sailing ships to steal the bones of the saint. They return to Bari on 8 May 1087 and announce they want to build a new basilica dedicated to St. Nicholas.

Alessandro and Arturo have been together for over 15 years and, despite the feeling they still have for each other, their relationship is now at crisis. When Alessandro’s best friend, out of the blue, asks them to take care of her two kids for a few days, something changes in their daily routine and love will drive them to a crazy and unexpected turn in their life.

Buenos Aires, 1955. One of a family of Sicilian immigrants, the adolescent Laura is on the threshold of adulthood. Her father Francesco Lojacono, is a humble tailor whose relationship with his daughter is one of extreme conflict. As Laura becomes increasingly emancipated in Argentinian (and therefore American) fashion, her father feels personally betrayed.

The year is 1764. For over a year, Josef has been leading a precarious life in Venice. He hopes to become an opera composer. The city, full of talented and already-established composers, seems closed to him. Looking for work as a violinist, he comes into the orbit of a rich young woman. Thanks to her, he gets the opportunity to play at salons. But his real opportunity arises when he becomes the lover of a libertine marquise. She teaches him worldly manners, rids him of signs of a provincial upbringing and introduces him to a hedonistic existence free from religious intolerance. Thus transformed, Josef gets an incan incredible commission: to write an opera for the San Carlo, Europe's largest theatre.

A young recruit to the Italian army discovers and rejects the seedy world of soldiers who prostitute themselves to supplement their income. But before leaving this world he is raped by a highly-respected senior officer and must decide whether to risk bringing proceedings against him.

11 September 2001. It's a day like any other in Naples, but soon an event will occur that is destined to remain ingrained forever in our collective unconscious. Everyone is immersed in their daily routine until the distant tragedy slips into everyone's lives, with different outcomes.

As a young boy, future emperor Nero witnesses the mad Emperor Caligula kill his father and exile his mother. While in exile in the pontine islands, Agrippina, his mother, sees a vision telling her that her son can become emperor, but she will have to die first. She accepts the proposal. Back in Rome, Nero, now being raised by emperor Claudius after Caligula's death, Agrippina returns. She poisons Claudius' food and Nero becomes emperor. At first, Nero cuts taxes and introduces successful programs and invades Brittania. Soon he meets a beautiful slave named Claudia Acte, and marries her, throwing off his engagement with Claudius' daughter, Claudia Octavia, telling her she can marry someone she will be happy with. Heartbroken, she arrives at an island and kills herself. Nero enjoys being married to Claudia Acte, but soon he gradually goes mad with power and sets fire to Rome.

Nadine is a French young woman. Fausto is an Italian young man trying to make it in Paris as a restaurant waiter. They accidentally meet at a five-star hotel. Both are fragile, alone and obsessed with the idea of an unattainable happiness. Their intense love is challenged by their own individual ambition and desperation.

Secretary of the most influential Communist Party in the Western world, Enrico Berlinguer challenged the international balance by seeking to bring the Communists to government in Italy and achieve socialism in a democratic country. From 1973, when he escaped an attack by the Bulgarian secret services, to the assassination of his main ally Aldo Moro in 1978, not forgetting his trips to Moscow and the covers of Time: the story of a man who wanted to change the world, but failed.

With her father on trial, 15-year-old Mignon leaves Paris to stay with her Italian relatives. The rather prim, snooty teen at first struggles to fit in with the more earthy Forbicioni family, each with their own problems. Eventually she bonds with her lovestruck little cousin Giorgio—who'll learn important life lessons over the course of his summer with Mignon.

After losing her job and her apartment, Marta Sironi, an aspiring stand-up comedian, reinvents herself as “Frau Klara,” a strict and highly qualified German nanny, and is hired to take care of two difficult kids. Marta must now choose whether to keep hiding or finally embrace who she really is, fighting for her dream, and protecting the people she has come to love.

Formal portraits, bookends in this 80-year saga, enclose the central story, which opens with the baptism of Carlo, a baby in his grandfather's lap, and ends with Carlo as a grandfather with a baby in his arms. And never once do we get out of the house, whose rooms provide structure. Comfort or passion? Carlo can't really decide until it's too late.

Mia and Ele share an important journey that will make them face their ghosts and grow up. A journey through amazing or run-down Italian scenarios, from the South to the North, discovering places, but above all discovering themselves.

The son of a Sardinian shepherd, Sebastiano Catte is a gentle and studious young man. At his mother’s urging, who dreams of seeing him become a doctor or a lawyer, he left his village to attend boarding school. In 1950, he suddenly returns home following the murder of his father.

1997: eight-year-old Linda drifts away from her wealthy grandmother's Swiss villa with her carefree mother Eva. In Italy, she meets Azzurra and Marta. A summer bond unites the three girls in a gang formed to protect each other, their youth, and their freedom. Around them swirl selfish parents chasing fragile dreams, gossiping neighbors, and a queer babysitter trying to find his place in a world that doesn’t want him either.

A biopic on the personal and artistic life of Italian songwriter Fabrizio De André.

Enrico is a corporate man whose job is to manipulate inexperienced scions into selling their flailing companies. His latest assignment proves more difficult than anticipated—since his target are two young siblings whose parents just died in a car accident.

After a terrorist attack in Rome, the government urges the population not to leave their houses: several couples clash during isolation. Shot during the first COVID-19 lockdown.

Four tales unfold in the Eternal City: While vacationing in Rome, architect John encounters a young man whose romantic woes remind him of a painful incident from his own youth; retired opera director Jerry discovers a mortician with an amazing voice, and he seizes the opportunity to rejuvenate his own flagging career; a young couple have separate romantic interludes; a spotlight shines on an ordinary man.

When a kidnapping victim turns up alive after fifteen years, a profiler and a private investigator try to piece together the mystery.

In a Naples suspended between magic and superstition, madness and rationality, a mystery envelops the existence of Adriana, overwhelmed by a sudden love and a violent crime.

When the family patriarch is murdered, seven women find themselves trapped together in his mansion to solve the mystery.

When Santa Claus, in the midst of an existential crisis, suddenly disappears during the holiday season, his wife Margaret must roll up her sleeves and save the most special day of the year.

Isabelle, HR of a large cruise company, made the mistake of choosing her boss as a lover. Before embarking on the maiden voyage of the new flagship of the fleet, though, he decided to disembark from their relationship! Some women take their revenge by poison, firearm, or slander. Isabelle chooses Remy a flamboyant, unemployed ne'er-do-well who flunked out in life on land, but after all is said and done, might have better luck at sea... She recruits him as leader of her plot and on this Palace of the Seas, Remy will first prove to be the worst nightmare of the CEO and Richard, the Cruise Director...then, little by little, he will change his life and that of all those who cross his path...

When an uncompromising idealist and rich, arrogant heir cross paths, their contrasting beliefs begin to shift when they fall for each other.

Intertwined stories of 50somethings that won't give up on their glory days.

In this rom-com challenging the concept of soulmates, parallel storylines portray four single friends as they pair up in different couple combinations.

Riccardo, Amir, Pietro and Massimo, four security guards, not particularly brilliant or courageous, are bound by an indissoluble friendship. When Amir, who has a large family to support, loses his job, the other three feel called to help him at any cost. Going from a bad idea to an impromptu criminal plan, the four friends will find themselves in a whirlwind of encounters, adventures and pitfalls, but also some surprises. Because our heroes still have more than one trick up their sleeve…