Cesare Zavattini

Writing

Cesare Zavattini

Born 1902-09-20 · Luzzara, Italy

Acting credits

Vittorio De Sica: Staging Life poster
NR

A documentary feature film about Vittorio De Sica, one of the greatest masters of world cinema. Through a new access to his family, rare archives and testimonies of contemporary artists and filmmakers from the entire world, the ilm retraces his life, his work and legacy. An intimate portrait of an author able to transform the observation of the real in an universal emotion and reveals the modernity of a gaze which keeps on illuminating cinema and our way of seeing the world.

Vittorio De Sica: Staging Life

2026

Hollywood sul Tevere poster
NR

Biggest Hollywood stars in Italy from 1950 to 1970 through Cinecittà Luce's archives.

Hollywood sul Tevere

2009

Cesare Zavattini poster
NR

Documentary about Italian film screenwriter Cesare Zavattini

Cesare Zavattini

2003

Cinéma et Réalité poster
6.5

In this documentary, giants of italian cinema such as Rossellini, De Sica, Fellini and Zavattini talk about the importance of cinema after WW2, and about huge moments of social rebellion. This movie gives the floor to the creators of italian neorealism.

Cinéma et Réalité

1967

Cesare Zavattini on “Italiani con Paolo Miele,” 2019 poster
NR

The following documentary on screenwriter, publisher, novelist, and film theorist Cesare Zavattini was made in 2019 and is part of an ongoing Italian television series profiling important historical figures. Each episode in the series, “Italiani con Paolo Mieli,” is introduced by Mieli, a journalist and the editor of Italy’s leading newspaper.

Cesare Zavattini on “Italiani con Paolo Miele,” 2019

2019

The Truth poster
8.8

The film tells of old Antonio, 81, who refuses to stay in a mental home and walks away. He hits the streets to give a message to people: be yourselves, tell what you think, make love and stop with violence against the weaker members of society. When he realizes nobody will listen, he tries to take his life by holding his breath, but he doesn't succeed.

The Truth

1982

Antonioni: Documents and Testimonials poster
6.3

A behind-the-scenes documentary about director Michelangelo Antonioni as he's shooting his segment of The Three Faces, a vehicle for Soraya, the former empress of Persia. Featuring interviews with Monica Vitti, Tonino Guerra and more.

Antonioni: Documents and Testimonials

1965

Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Film Maker's Life poster
5.7

Documentary about Italian movie director Pier Paolo Pasolini, with interviews with some of his actors and friends.

Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Film Maker's Life

1971

Strand, Under the Dark Cloth poster
6.6

This documentary studies the life and artwork of photographer Paul Strand, using his own compelling photography as well as interviews with his friends, acquaintances and third wife. Documentarian John Walker explores the various influences Strand encountered throughout his life that helped him to develop as an artist. His personal life and relationships are examined and shed light on the inner working of this man who achieved great renown while hiding "under the dark cloth."

Strand, Under the Dark Cloth

1989

No artwork available
NR

Mario Soldati accompanies us once again, after the journey in the Po valley, in search of genuine foods, this time to discover the culinary traditions of Christmas lunch. Cesare Zavattini tells about the typical Christmas dishes of his region. The broadcast aired on December 17, 1958.

Il Pranzo di Natale a casa di Cesare Zavattini

1958

La prima volta che Zavattini provò ad usare un videotape poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

La prima volta che Zavattini provò ad usare un videotape

1993

Behind the camera

Bicycle Thieves poster
8.2

Unemployed Antonio is elated when he finally finds work hanging posters around war-torn Rome. However on his first day, his bicycle—essential to his work—gets stolen. His job is doomed unless he can find the thief. With the help of his son, Antonio combs the city, becoming desperate for justice.

Bicycle Thieves

1948

Sunflower poster
7.5

After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover?

Sunflower

1970

Two Women poster
7.8

A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.

Two Women

1960

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow poster
7.4

Three tales of very different women using their sexuality as a means to getting what they want.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

1963

Umberto D. poster
7.9

When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.

Umberto D.

1952

Woman Times Seven poster
6.3

Seven mini-stories of adultery: a widow misbehaves at her husband's funeral, a wife turns to streetwalking for revenge, a prudish girl surprises, a neglected wife vies for her husband's attention, a fight over a dress, a death pact, and a detective revealed as a jealous husband's spy.

Woman Times Seven

1967

Boccaccio '70 poster
6.9

An anthology of four comic moral tales about the hypocrisies surrounding sex in 1960s Italy: frothy young love and office politics in the big city; milk advertisements that begin to haunt an aging prude; a trophy wife enduring her husband's very public affairs; a lucky ticket-holder at a small town fair.

Boccaccio '70

1962

La freccia nel fianco poster
6.5

A married woman fights her strange attraction to an aristocratic young pianist from her past.

La freccia nel fianco

1945

Shoeshine poster
7.8

Two shoeshine boys in postwar Rome, Italy save up to buy a horse, but their involvement as dupes in a burglary lands them in juvenile prison; the experience take a devastating toll on their friendship.

Shoeshine

1946

È caduta una donna poster
10.0

In Milan, an unwed mother, forced to flee from her town because of the scandal, meets a doctor who falls in love with her and marries her. But the couple's relationship breaks down almost immediately: the husband is unable to leave behind the woman's past and can not stand a son not his. So Dina, in an attempt to readjust the rapport, entrusts the child to the care of the mother of her seducer (meanwhile deceased). But the sacrifice is beyond her strength, and she's soon taken by the irresistible desire to get her child back: in damp and foggy night, on her way to the station...

È caduta una donna

1941

The Witches poster
6.0

Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from women and lust from men. A woman offers to take an injured man to the hospital. A widowed father and his son seek for a new wife/mother. A man seeks revenge for a woman's honor. A bored housewife tries to explain to her husband that he's not as romantic as he used to be.

The Witches

1967

The Roof poster
7.3

Under provincial Italian law at the time, once a roof is erected, the occupants cannot be evicted from a building. This comedy follows the efforts of a family to erect the roof on a house overnight so that a newlywed couple can have their own home.

The Roof

1956

Indiscretion of an American Wife poster
5.9

While on vacation in Rome, married American Mary Forbes becomes entangled in an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni Doria. As she prepares to leave Italy, Giovanni confesses his love for her; he doesn't want her to go. Together they wander the railroad station where Mary is to take the train to Paris, then ultimately reunite with her husband and daughter in Philadelphia. Will she throw away her old life for this passionate new romance?

Indiscretion of an American Wife

1953

The Gold of Naples poster
7.3

A tribute to Naples, this film presents six episodes: a clown exploited by a gangster, a pizza seller losing her husband’s ring, a child's funeral, a gambler beaten by a kid, a prostitute's unusual wedding, and a "wisdom seller" offering advice.

The Gold of Naples

1954

Miracle in Milan poster
7.3

Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.

Miracle in Milan

1951

The Boom poster
6.9

Sweet-sour comedy on Italy's 1950s rage to get rich as fast as possible! The businessman wants to satisfy his wife's craving for luxury and a "respectable life" so he becomes heavily indebted. In desperation he agrees to sell a precious part of his body for a large sum of money. But just before the crucial operation he panics...

The Boom

1963

The Last Judgment poster
6.4

In Naples, a voice from the skies announces one morning that the final judgment will be at 6 p.m. on that day. What follows is a series of vignettes depicting various people's reactions (or lack thereof) to the announcement.

The Last Judgment

1961

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves poster
6.2

A lord’s servant, Ali Baba, is sent to retrieve a slave for his master, but ends up on an adventure filled with gold, mischief, love, and forty famous thieves instead.

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

1954

Love in the City poster
6.5

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

Love in the City

1953

Love in the City poster
6.5

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

Love in the City

1953

The Condemned of Altona poster
7.1

A dying German magnate invites his youngest son and daughter-in-law home to discuss the future of the family's shipbuilding empire. There, the daughter-in-law stumbles upon a secret of the family's Nazi past.

The Condemned of Altona

1962

Biraghin poster
9.0

Birdaghin is a dancer at La Scala in Milan whose rapid success also quickly goes to her head. Fortunately, everything will be fine.

Biraghin

1946

After the Fox poster
6.1

A criminal mastermind sets up a phony film production as part of a plan to smuggle stolen gold.

After the Fox

1966

We, the Women poster
6.2

Five portraits of actresses in their "common" life, seen as women rather than movie stars.

We, the Women

1953