Italia: Fire and Ashes

Mar 15, 2023

1h 35m

★ 5.5

Overview

The epic and poetic tale of the early years of Italian cinema, from 1896 to 1930: how peplum was born, how the first stars shone, how many daring filmmakers were able to create an original style amalgamating literature, theater, painting and opera; a tale of splendor and decadence.

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

Articolture

Nocturnes Productions

Istituto Luce Cinecittà

Ciné+

Italia: Fire and Ashes Trailers

Cast

Self - Narrator (voice)

Isabella Rossellini

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

10.0

Laurence Olivier: a life

Oct 24, 1982

A multi-award winning biography covering the life and career of legendary screen and stage actor/director Laurence Olivier.

6.6

The Red Baron

Mar 29, 2008

Richthofen goes off to war like thousands of other men. As fighter pilots, they become cult heroes for the soldiers on the battlefields. Marked by sportsmanlike conduct, technical exactitude and knightly propriety, they have their own code of honour. Before long he begins to understand that his hero status is deceptive. His love for Kate, a nurse, opens his eyes to the brutality of war.

6.2

VHS Revolution

Aug 28, 2017

Using testimonies by pioneers and witnesses of the times, delve into the feverish visual culture the media generated – with far-fetched examples of canine television games, seduction manuals, aerobics class while holding a baby, among others.

7.4

Jim Carrey: America Unmasked

Oct 14, 2021

Composed of numerous archives and film clips, this documentary is the story of a transgressive actor, a pirate who came to crack America's too perfect mask to reveal its most infantile and moronic face, right in the heart of the Hollywood system.

6.8

Trintignant by Trintignant

Oct 11, 2021

A portrait of a man of rare elegance and enigmatic charm, versatile and successful: Jean-Louis Trintignant, one of the most critically acclaimed French actors of the last sixty years, known for his numerous roles on stage and screen.

8.1

FFG, el último gran conversador

Aug 27, 2021

Fernando Fernán Gómez (1921-2007), actor, writer, playwright and film director, was for decades one of the most important figures in Spanish culture. His close friends and relatives reveal another facet in which he stood out above all: that of being an excellent conversationalist, capable of hypnotizing and seducing those who listened to him.

6.1

The Bohemian

Oct 20, 2022

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.

6.5

Cinecittà Babilonia: Sex, Drugs and Black Shirts

Jun 14, 2017

The story of Italian cinema under Fascism, a sophisticated film industry built around the founding of the Cinecittà studios and the successful birth of a domestic star system, populated by very peculiar artists among whom stood out several beautiful, magnetic, special actresses; a dark story of war, drugs, sex, censorship and tragedy.

7.0

Ragtime

Nov 20, 1981

A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.

8.0

Bacon-Freud, face à face

Mar 28, 2025

No overview available.

6.2

Excellent Cadavers

Oct 16, 1999

Palermo, Sicily, 1984. Examining magistrate Giovanni Falcone allies with Tomasso Buscetta, a former mobster, to defeat the clan of Corleone, the ruthless Mafia faction that rules Cosa Nostra with an iron hand, cruelly eliminating all those who dare to oppose its immense power: other criminals, policemen, judges, even innocent civilians. One of them wants revenge, the other wants justice. But only one can survive such an unequal fight.

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0.0

Шум времени

Sep 24, 2026

A biopic about Soviet composer Dmitry Shostakovich.

7.0

Lost in La Mancha

Feb 11, 2002

Fulton and Pepe's 2000 documentary captures Terry Gilliam's attempt to get The Man Who Killed Don Quixote off the ground. Back injuries, freakish storms, and more zoom in to sabotage the project.

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0.0

Lakhdar Ben Khlouf

Invalid Date

Depicts the life of Sidi Lakhdar Ben Khlouf, an eminent symbolic figure who is part of the memory of Algerian poetry and popular fight. Sidi Lakhdar Ben Khelouf became famous thanks to his poems about the Prophet Muhammad (earning him the nickname "praiser of the Prophet") and the epic he dedicates to the Battle of Mazagran on August 26, 1558, against the Spaniards. Counted among the patron saints of the Mostaganem region, his poems are often interpreted by chaâbi singers.

0.0

Kaneko Fumiko

Feb 28, 2026

Why did she die? The Supreme Court first sentenced her to death, but then commuted her sentence to life imprisonment and sent her to Tochigi Women's Prison. What happened before she took her own life there? Based on her tanka poems, which convey her raw voice, the film explores her lone fight during the 121 days between her death sentence and suicide, a period that has remained obscure to date.

0.0

Chaplin et "Les temps modernes", La voie du silence

Apr 23, 2025

In 1936, the sound film had already been around for a decade. Nevertheless, Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) made another silent film, "Modern Times", which only used sound effects as a dramaturgical device. Speaking is reserved for the apparatus alone. The film became a monument in the history of cinema for this very reason.

Italia: Fire and Ashes

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Italia: Fire and Ashes Trailers