Carlo Lizzani

Director

April 3, 1922 (91 years)

† October 5, 2013

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Biography

Carlo Lizzani was an Italian film director, screenwriter and critic. Born in Rome, after World War II Lizzani worked on such notable films of the late 1940s as Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero, Alberto Lattuada's The Mill on the Po (both 1948) and Giuseppe De Santis' Bitter Rice (1950, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Story). After helming documentaries, he debuted as a feature director with the admired World War II drama Achtung! Banditi! (1951). He film…

Filmography

7.6

Germany, Year Zero

In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.

6.6

Crazy Joe

The rise and fall of a Mafia gangster, based on the life of murdered New York gangster "Crazy" Joey Gallo.

6.3

The Last Four Days

In 1945, the dictator of fascist Italy and Hitler's close ally Benito Mussolini faces defeat. In a desperate attempt to avoid capture, he tries to flee the country with his lover Claretta Petacci, but Italian partisans are on their tail.

6.0

Roma bene

A parade of corrupt and sleazy characters in the high society of Rome.

6.0

Kleinhoff Hotel

Pascale, married to an architect, misses her flight to London and is forced to stay in Berlin, at the Kleinhoff Hotel where she stayed as a student. Karl, a would-be revolutionary lives in the adjoining room and Pascale spies him and his ex-girl-friend through a hole. Then she follows him to a questionable place where she is arrested by the police during a revolutionists raid. When she returns to the Kleinhoff Hotel, Pascale finds Karl crying, and enters his room to console him and they have a love affair.

5.3

Black Turin

Mino and Lello, two sons of a worker wrongly accused of murder, try to find out evidence of his innocence and begin to investigate mafia business in Torino.

7.0

Maria Josè, l'ultima regina

Maria Josè was the daughter of the king of Belgium and she was betrothed to Umberto di Savoia, the son of Vittorio Emanuele III, the king of Italy. The movie tells her story from her teens, when she was a Red Cross nurse during World War I until her exile in 1946.

6.8

Chronicle of Poor Lovers

Florence, Italy, 1925, during the fascist dictatorship. In order to live near his girlfriend Bianca, young Mario moves to a humble street in the old city center, where he befriends Maciste and Ugo, two anti-fascists.

6.0

The Dirty Game

A U.S. intelligence general recalls three Cold War cases of Soviet, French and Italian spies.

4.9

Mother Ebe

Based on the story of the woman recently brought to trial on charges of moral plagiarism and witchcraft.

6.6

Love in the City

Six vignettes explore love and desire in Rome, from prostitution and heartache to unwed motherhood and the male gaze.

7.0

At the Edge of the City

Based on real events, in Rome a lawyer is not sure whether to accept defending a lower-class worker wrongly accused of the murder of his girlfriend.

7.2

Fontamara

Fontamara is a village in the Marsica, forgotten by all but God and its inhabitants are called 'cafoni' (boors). Berardo Viola wants to marry Elvira but only after gaining enough money to buy some land and in order to reach his aim he has the idea of going to a great city. When Maria Grazia is raped by the fascists, Berardo and Antonio decide to leave Fontamara and go to Rome. Here they are swindled by a lawyer and afterwards they are invited by an antifascist to a restaurant where they are arrested by the police because of some subversive papers they had.

5.3

Love and Anger

Five short stories with contemporary settings. In New York, people are indifferent to derelicts sleeping on sidewalks, to a woman's assault in front of an apartment building, and to a couple injured in a car crash. A man, stripped of his identity, dies in bed with actors expressing his agony. A cheerful, innocent young man walking a city street in a time of war pays a price for this innocence. A couple talks about cinema while it watches another couple talk of love and truth on the eve of one character's return to Cuba. Striking students take over a university classroom; an argument follows about revolution or incremental change.

6.4

Kill and Pray

A Mexican community is slaughtered by Confederate troops; the lone survivor, a boy, is taken in by a preacher. Years later, the boy is now a soft-spoken, devout young man with perfect shooting skills (despite being a pacifist). On his journey to help his half-sister out of a complicated situation, he crosses paths with the men who killed his family, unbeknownst to him.

5.9

The Hills Run Red

After the Civil War ends, two soldiers return home with a cache of stolen money. They are caught by Union troops. One escapes, but the other is sent to prison for five years. When he gets out and goes home, he finds that his wife has died in poverty because his partner kept all the money, and is now a major power in the area with an army of deadly gunmen to back him up.

6.3

Wake Up and Die

A petty hoodlum pulls jewellery store heists in broad daylight. The cop on his tail knows he has accomplices and focuses on the gangster's girl friend is his attempt to catch him.

7.0

Le cinque giornate di Milano

In 1847, Milan was ruled by the Austrians, commanded by Marshal Radetzky. The Milanese people were exhausted by the lack of freedom, and when an Italian cardinal was appointed to the Milanese curia, they took to the streets in celebration, with no intention of revolt. But the celebrations were stopped by the Austrians with harsh and cruel repression.

6.1

Attention! Bandits!

During the winter of 1944, the partisans stationed in the Ligurian Apennines must go to a factory in Genoa, in order to pick up a delivery of weapons. Meanwhile, there's a strike in the city and the Nazis are trying to suppress it violently. The factory becomes the scene of fighting between the Germans and the partisans but the latter, aided by the workers, will be able to get the better.

N/A

All Human Rights for All

Collective film for the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with 30 directors each helming a segment about one of the 30 articles of the Declaration.