Directed by Ettore Scola • 1977 • Italy
Starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni
Italian cinema dream team Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni are cast against glamorous type and deliver two of the finest performances of their careers in this moving, quietly subversive drama from Ettore Scola. Though it’s set in Rome on the historic day in 1938 when Benito Mussolini and the city first rolled out the red carpet for Adolf Hitler, the film takes place entirely in a working-class apartment building, where an unexpected friendship blossoms between a pair of people who haven’t joined the festivities: a conservative housewife and mother tending to her domestic duties and a liberal radio broadcaster awaiting deportation. Scola paints an exquisite portrait in muted tones, a story of two individuals helpless in the face of Fascism’s rise.
Up Next in The Cinema 5 Story
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Jabberwocky
Directed by Terry Gilliam • 1977 • United Kingdom
Starring Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Warren MitchellAmid the filth and muck of England in the Dark Ages, a fearsome dragon stalks the land, casting a shadow of terror upon the kingdom of Bruno the Questionable. Who should emerge as the only poss...
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One Sings, the Other Doesn't
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1977 • France
Starring Valérie Mairesse, Thérèse Liotard, Ali RaffiIn the early 1960s in Paris, two young women become friends. Pomme is an aspiring singer. Suzanne is a pregnant country girl unable to support a third child. Pomme lends Suzanne the money for an illegal...
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Searching for Mr. Rugoff
Directed by Ira Deutchman • 2019 • United States
Starring Donald S. Rugoff, Elyce Bonnell, Peter BroderickThis illuminating, unexpected slice of forgotten film history tells the story of Donald Rugoff, who was the crazy genius behind Cinema 5, the groundbreaking midcentury theater chain and fil...
