The Return of Cagliostro 2003 ( 7.6)

In the Sicily of the late 1940s, two brother sculptors, tired of selling madonnas to the local churches, finally realize their dream, and set up a Sicilian production company, thanks to the help of a local bishop. They start producing one box-office failure Z-movie after the other, all with terribly bad local non-pros as actors. Covered in debts, they finally have their great chance, when a local nobleman obsessed by magic decides to invest all his wealth in the making of a movie about Cagliostro, just one year after Orson Welles' Black Magic (1949). They hire a famous American actor (Robert Englund) and start shooting "The Return of Cagliostro".

How We Got the Italian Movie Business Into Trouble: The True Story of Franco and Ciccio 2004 ( 6.7)

Bravo Bene! 2025

Filming on Franco Maresco's film about Carmelo Bene is abruptly halted after yet another on-set accident. Producer Andrea Occhipinti pulls the plug, exasperated by the endless takes and repeated delays. For his part, the director of Belluscone and The Mafia Is No Longer What It Was, accuses the production of "filmicide," and then disappears. Maresco's friend, Umberto Cantone, attempts to mend the rift by calling witnesses from all those involved in the project, in an investigation that offers an opportunity to retrace the personality and ideas of the most corrosive and apocalyptic auteur in Italian cinema. What if, meanwhile, far from everything and everyone, Maresco is finishing his film, which has become "the only way to give form to the anger and horror I feel for this shitty world"?