Francesca Archibugi

Directing

Francesca Archibugi

Born

1960-05-16 (66)

Place of birth

Roma, Lazio, Italia

Known for

Directing

Credits

57 titles

Known for

Peccato poster
NR

2049. Emanuela Fanelli is 63 years old and lives alone in a small isolated mountain village in Valle d'Aosta. She doesn't act anymore, she shied away from cameras and has been forgotten by the showbiz. Through a ironic and speculative tone, Peccato interrogates on the reasons of the actress' retreat, by a "what if" narrative that goes back through Fanelli's carreer and the mysterious scandal that caused her downfall.

Peccato

2026

The Leisure Seeker poster
7.1

A runaway couple go on an unforgettable journey from Boston to Key West, recapturing their passion for life and their love for each other on a road trip that provides revelation and surprise right up to the very end.

The Leisure Seeker

2018

The Hummingbird poster
6.9

Everyone in Marco's life seems constantly restless, from his brilliant but unhappily married parents to his own wife Marina, or even Luisa, the real love of his life, a girl he met during a fateful summer in the '70s and always stayed in touch with. Tragedy and fate seem to haunt him, yet he somehow manages never to get ensnared in the chaos—like his namesake, “the hummingbird”, he focuses all his energy at standing still.

The Hummingbird

2022

Like Crazy poster
7.4

Two mental patients with opposite personalities ditch their Tuscan hospital and embark on an unpredictable exploration of the real world.

Like Crazy

2016

No artwork available
NR

Italian TV mini series

What Is to Be Done?

1979

With Closed Eyes poster
7.2

In the Tuscan countryside at the end of the 19th century, Pietro, the shy son of a tyrannical landowner, falls in love with Ghisola, a peasant girl with no family. His father has her sent away. Years later, the two meet again: still in love with her, Pietro would like to marry her, but she has become the mistress of a married man.

With Closed Eyes

1994

Film credits

2010s · 4 titles

2000s · 3 titles

What Do You Know About Me poster
7.0

Until the 1970s, Italian cinema dominated the international scene, even competing with Hollywood. Then, in just a few years, came its rapid decline, the flight of our greatest producers, a crisis among the best writer-directors, the collapse of production. But what are the true causes and circumstances of this decline? In an attempt to provide an answer to this question, Di Me Cosa Ne Sai strives to depict this great cultural change. Begun as a loving examination of Italian cinema, the film transformed into a docu-drama that alternates between interviews with the great names of the past and fragments of cultural and political life of the last 30 years. It is a travel diary that shows Italy from north to south, through movie theatres; television-addicted kids; Berlusconi and Fellini; shopping centers; TV news editors; stories of impassioned film exhibitors and directors who fight for their films; and interviews with itinerant projectionists and great European directors.

What Do You Know About Me

2009

Marcello, una vita dolce poster
5.2

After shooting to fame with Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” (1960), actor Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996) starred in more than 160 films in his nearly half-a-century career. Directors Mario Canale and Annarosa Morri look into the melancholic charm of one of the most famous Italian actors through interviews with his two daughters, Barbara and Chiara; directors Fellini and Luchino Visconti; actresses Claudia Cardinale and Anouk Aimee; and in archival footage of Mastroianni himself. The subject matter ranges from Mastroianni’s passion for kidney-bean pasta and his addiction to the telephone to his famous laziness, humility and talent. Shown in black-and-white, Mastroianni — elegantly holding a cigarette in between his fingers — is undeniably the dandy.

Marcello, una vita dolce

2006

La strana coppia. Incontro con Age e Scarpelli poster
NR

Documentary about Italian screenwriting legends Agenore 'Age' Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli.

La strana coppia. Incontro con Age e Scarpelli

2001

1980s · 4 titles

Secrets Secrets poster
7.2

Young terrorist Laura shoots both a judge and a comrade, and over time her violent act becomes a thread linking the lives and fates of several other women. Each has her own secret, including the lawyer who listens to Laura as if in a ‘trance’: moments before, she discovered her husband was cheating.

Secrets Secrets

1985

Vampirismus poster
NR

A Count marries a woman with illness that makes her suffer attacks of vampirism. The Count took flight in the wildest horror, and ran, without any idea where he was going or what he was doing, impelled by the deadliest terror, all about the walks in the park, till he found himself at the door of his own Castle as the day was breaking, bathed in cold perspiration. Involuntarily, without the capability of taking hold of a thought, he dashed up the steps, and went bursting through the passages and into his own bedroom.

Vampirismus

1982

Mignon Has Left poster
7.1

With her father on trial, 15-year-old Mignon leaves Paris to stay with her Italian relatives. The rather prim, snooty teen at first struggles to fit in with the more earthy Forbicioni family, each with their own problems. Eventually she bonds with her lovestruck little cousin Giorgio—who'll learn important life lessons over the course of his summer with Mignon.

Mignon Has Left

1988

The Fall of the Rebel Angels poster
4.7

Who is the mysterious stranger Cecilia met on the street? Why is he suspicious of everyone? She is happily married, has a lovely child and a good job: yet she decides to join him and to become his lover, sharing his destiny right up to its tragic conclusion.

The Fall of the Rebel Angels

1981

Series credits

Behind the camera

The Leisure Seeker poster
7.1

A runaway couple go on an unforgettable journey from Boston to Key West, recapturing their passion for life and their love for each other on a road trip that provides revelation and surprise right up to the very end.

The Leisure Seeker

2018

The Hummingbird poster
6.9

Everyone in Marco's life seems constantly restless, from his brilliant but unhappily married parents to his own wife Marina, or even Luisa, the real love of his life, a girl he met during a fateful summer in the '70s and always stayed in touch with. Tragedy and fate seem to haunt him, yet he somehow manages never to get ensnared in the chaos—like his namesake, “the hummingbird”, he focuses all his energy at standing still.

The Hummingbird

2022

The Hummingbird poster
6.9

Everyone in Marco's life seems constantly restless, from his brilliant but unhappily married parents to his own wife Marina, or even Luisa, the real love of his life, a girl he met during a fateful summer in the '70s and always stayed in touch with. Tragedy and fate seem to haunt him, yet he somehow manages never to get ensnared in the chaos—like his namesake, “the hummingbird”, he focuses all his energy at standing still.

The Hummingbird

2022

Like Crazy poster
7.4

Two mental patients with opposite personalities ditch their Tuscan hospital and embark on an unpredictable exploration of the real world.

Like Crazy

2016

With Closed Eyes poster
7.2

In the Tuscan countryside at the end of the 19th century, Pietro, the shy son of a tyrannical landowner, falls in love with Ghisola, a peasant girl with no family. His father has her sent away. Years later, the two meet again: still in love with her, Pietro would like to marry her, but she has become the mistress of a married man.

With Closed Eyes

1994

With Closed Eyes poster
7.2

In the Tuscan countryside at the end of the 19th century, Pietro, the shy son of a tyrannical landowner, falls in love with Ghisola, a peasant girl with no family. His father has her sent away. Years later, the two meet again: still in love with her, Pietro would like to marry her, but she has become the mistress of a married man.

With Closed Eyes

1994

Dry poster
6.4

In Rome it hasn’t rained for three years and the lack of water is overturning rules and habits. Through the city dying of thirst and prohibitions moves a chorus of people, young and old, marginalised and successful, victims and profiteers. Their lives are linked in a single design, while each seeks his or her deliverance.

Dry

2022

Ten Minutes poster
6.2

Ten minutes a day can change the course of your day. Ten minutes doing something completely new can change the course of a life. This is what Bianca will discover in the midst of an existential crisis. New meetings, the discovery of special bonds and listening to those who have always loved us. Sometimes it doesn't take much to start over and this film teaches us this, through a warm and passionate story of rebirth.

Ten Minutes

2024

Trafficante di virus poster
4.8

Researcher Irene Colli rose to prominence for disclosing the genetic sequence of the avian flu virus. She is accused of giving the virus to pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine. Overwhelmed by the media hype of the journalistic investigation, Irene resigns from her position as a member of parliament and returns to work abroad before the end of the trial.

Trafficante di virus

2021

An Italian Name poster
6.3

Paolo is an outgoing and handsome real estate broker married to Simona, a beautiful woman from the rough outskirts of Rome who has become an author of spicy bestsellers and is pregnant with their child. Betta, Paolo’s sister and her husband Sandro organise a dinner party with Paolo, Simona and their childhood friend, the eccentric musician Claudio. During the lively gathering Paolo reveals what he would like to name his son, causing reactions to steam up and a torrent of revelations to follow reaching climactic proportions.

An Italian Name

2015

An Italian Name poster
6.3

Paolo is an outgoing and handsome real estate broker married to Simona, a beautiful woman from the rough outskirts of Rome who has become an author of spicy bestsellers and is pregnant with their child. Betta, Paolo’s sister and her husband Sandro organise a dinner party with Paolo, Simona and their childhood friend, the eccentric musician Claudio. During the lively gathering Paolo reveals what he would like to name his son, causing reactions to steam up and a torrent of revelations to follow reaching climactic proportions.

An Italian Name

2015

The Great Pumpkin poster
6.7

An epileptic 12-year-old girl, Pippi, is hospitalized in the psychiatric ward instead of the neurological ward, due to an administration error. Out of this mistake begins the difficult journey towards being cured.

The Great Pumpkin

1993

The Great Pumpkin poster
6.7

An epileptic 12-year-old girl, Pippi, is hospitalized in the psychiatric ward instead of the neurological ward, due to an administration error. Out of this mistake begins the difficult journey towards being cured.

The Great Pumpkin

1993

Magical Nights poster
6.1

Rome, 1990. The night Italy's national football team is eliminated from the World Cup by Argentina on penalty kicks, a well-known film producer is found dead in the Tiber river. The main suspects for the murder are three young aspiring screenwriters, who–promptly taken to the police–start to tell their version of the story.

Magical Nights

2018

The Wicked poster
7.5

At the beginning of the 20th century, a junior resident takes an interest in a newly-arrived patient, a young Italian woman who has mysteriously developed schizophrenia. To identify the causes of her condition, he employs psychoanalytic methods to dig into her sexual past, despite objections by the old-fashioned chief physician.

The Wicked

1991

The Belt poster
4.5

Vittorio, an American novelist teaching in Rome, meets the beautiful but damaged Bianca and they rapidly fall into an urgent, tempestuous affair. He's hesitant over their relationship since she seems to thrive on conflict and is constantly baiting him into physical altercation. Bianca gives Vittorio an exquisite leather belt as a gift; he knows immediately that she wants him to whip her with it. Driven by his craving for her, Vittorio complies to Bianca's desire. Their relationship escalates into a dark realm of S&M which becomes more and more self-destructive.

The Belt

1989

Parole povere poster
7.0

“I approached Pierluigi Cappello when he became my bedside table companion. We didn’t know each other, but were already intimate. His poems are full of images, I might even have dreamt some. I didn’t know anything about his personal life, about the motorcycle accident when he was sixteen, and that he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. There’s no trace of it in the poems: in his verses Pierluigi runs, and sometimes he flies.”

Parole povere

2013

Parole povere poster
7.0

“I approached Pierluigi Cappello when he became my bedside table companion. We didn’t know each other, but were already intimate. His poems are full of images, I might even have dreamt some. I didn’t know anything about his personal life, about the motorcycle accident when he was sixteen, and that he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. There’s no trace of it in the poems: in his verses Pierluigi runs, and sometimes he flies.”

Parole povere

2013

Illusione poster
5.9

Perugia. The police are carrying away the body of a young woman when they hear a sigh: Rosa Lazar is still alive. The assistant district attorney Cristina Camponeschi and psychologist Stefano Mangiaboschi investigate, but Rosa seems unaware of the attack she has endured and hides the truth. For Cristina, the girl is the key to an international crime ring; for Stefano, the start of an inner journey that will lead him to reveal the true enigma of Rosa Lazar.

Illusione

2026

Illusione poster
5.9

Perugia. The police are carrying away the body of a young woman when they hear a sigh: Rosa Lazar is still alive. The assistant district attorney Cristina Camponeschi and psychologist Stefano Mangiaboschi investigate, but Rosa seems unaware of the attack she has endured and hides the truth. For Cristina, the girl is the key to an international crime ring; for Stefano, the start of an inner journey that will lead him to reveal the true enigma of Rosa Lazar.

Illusione

2026

Vivere poster
5.5

In a respectable suburb made up of row houses, Luca Attorre — a freelance journalist who struggles to get his features published in the papers — is unable to maintain Susi, a ballerina reduced to teaching dance to overweight women, and Lucilla, their quiet and imaginative six-year- old daughter who suffers from severe bronchial asthma. They are helped economically by Pierpaolo, Luca’s seventeen-year-old son from a previous relationship. Pierpaolo lives in an Art Nouveau house with his mother and grandfather, an important trial lawyer of cases linked to politics who rakes in several million euros a year. In the setting of a magnificent and incomprehensible Rome, both a good mother and a bad one, Mary Ann, a deeply Catholic student of art history from Ireland, au pair for the little Lucilla, is caught in the middle.

Vivere

2019

Vivere poster
5.5

In a respectable suburb made up of row houses, Luca Attorre — a freelance journalist who struggles to get his features published in the papers — is unable to maintain Susi, a ballerina reduced to teaching dance to overweight women, and Lucilla, their quiet and imaginative six-year- old daughter who suffers from severe bronchial asthma. They are helped economically by Pierpaolo, Luca’s seventeen-year-old son from a previous relationship. Pierpaolo lives in an Art Nouveau house with his mother and grandfather, an important trial lawyer of cases linked to politics who rakes in several million euros a year. In the setting of a magnificent and incomprehensible Rome, both a good mother and a bad one, Mary Ann, a deeply Catholic student of art history from Ireland, au pair for the little Lucilla, is caught in the middle.

Vivere

2019

Lezioni di volo poster
6.3

A pair of teen friends – known as "Chicken & Curry" because they are virtually inseparable – fail their high school finals and try to cover it by claiming that Curry is in the midst of an identity crisis that can only be solved by a visit to his ancestral homeland, India. While the ruse works wonderfully on their parents, this impromptu journey of self-discovery takes an unexpected detour when Curry locates his biological sister and remains captivated by the country he first despised, and Chicken falls for an older doctor working for Médecins Sans Frontières.

Lezioni di volo

2007

Lezioni di volo poster
6.3

A pair of teen friends – known as "Chicken & Curry" because they are virtually inseparable – fail their high school finals and try to cover it by claiming that Curry is in the midst of an identity crisis that can only be solved by a visit to his ancestral homeland, India. While the ruse works wonderfully on their parents, this impromptu journey of self-discovery takes an unexpected detour when Curry locates his biological sister and remains captivated by the country he first despised, and Chicken falls for an older doctor working for Médecins Sans Frontières.

Lezioni di volo

2007

Mignon Has Left poster
7.1

With her father on trial, 15-year-old Mignon leaves Paris to stay with her Italian relatives. The rather prim, snooty teen at first struggles to fit in with the more earthy Forbicioni family, each with their own problems. Eventually she bonds with her lovestruck little cousin Giorgio—who'll learn important life lessons over the course of his summer with Mignon.

Mignon Has Left

1988

Mignon Has Left poster
7.1

With her father on trial, 15-year-old Mignon leaves Paris to stay with her Italian relatives. The rather prim, snooty teen at first struggles to fit in with the more earthy Forbicioni family, each with their own problems. Eventually she bonds with her lovestruck little cousin Giorgio—who'll learn important life lessons over the course of his summer with Mignon.

Mignon Has Left

1988

L'estate sta finendo poster
8.0

15-year-old Giuliana doesn't want to spend the summer with her rich mother, so—without a word—she leaves with Romeo, the son of the janitor of her building, embarking on a backpacking trip through Italy. Her divorced father is worried and decides to go in search of his daughter.

L'estate sta finendo

1987

Couch Potatoes poster
5.2

Giorgio and Tito, father and son. A successful journalist and a lazy teenager apparently impossible to understand. Giorgio's dream is to take Tito to the Nasca Hill in Liguria, but Tito prefers to spend his entire day with his group of friends, eating, talking about nothing and playing video games. Until one day when he suddenly informs his father that he would join him in this trip. After a series of accidents and misunderstandings, at the end, somehow father and son will find the way to communicate … or at least they will try.

Couch Potatoes

2017

Couch Potatoes poster
5.2

Giorgio and Tito, father and son. A successful journalist and a lazy teenager apparently impossible to understand. Giorgio's dream is to take Tito to the Nasca Hill in Liguria, but Tito prefers to spend his entire day with his group of friends, eating, talking about nothing and playing video games. Until one day when he suddenly informs his father that he would join him in this trip. After a series of accidents and misunderstandings, at the end, somehow father and son will find the way to communicate … or at least they will try.

Couch Potatoes

2017

A Matter of Heart poster
6.0

Garage owner Angelo and big-time film producer Alberto find themselves occupying neighbouring beds in a Rome hospital after suffering heart attacks. Alberto is a gregarious joker - and chain smoker - who has a strong effect on the impressionable Angelo. However, as one of the men's condition deteriorates, the other becomes more deeply involved in his personal life.

A Matter of Heart

2009

A Matter of Heart poster
6.0

Garage owner Angelo and big-time film producer Alberto find themselves occupying neighbouring beds in a Rome hospital after suffering heart attacks. Alberto is a gregarious joker - and chain smoker - who has a strong effect on the impressionable Angelo. However, as one of the men's condition deteriorates, the other becomes more deeply involved in his personal life.

A Matter of Heart

2009

Shooting the Moon poster
6.6

14-year-old Siddharta, wise beyond his age, has to deal every day with his heroin-addict mother Silvia and an absent father. One day, his four-year-old sister Domitilla accidentally pricks her finger on one of Silvia's used needles without her noticing. Seeking advice on the Internet, Siddharta is told to have her tested for hepatitis and AIDS. Thus he embarks on a odyssey of medical bureaucracy and both kind and uncaring adults.

Shooting the Moon

1998

Shooting the Moon poster
6.6

14-year-old Siddharta, wise beyond his age, has to deal every day with his heroin-addict mother Silvia and an absent father. One day, his four-year-old sister Domitilla accidentally pricks her finger on one of Silvia's used needles without her noticing. Seeking advice on the Internet, Siddharta is told to have her tested for hepatitis and AIDS. Thus he embarks on a odyssey of medical bureaucracy and both kind and uncaring adults.

Shooting the Moon

1998

No artwork available
NR

Anthology short film with segments by nine directors against Silvio Berlusconi and its Forza Italia party — released ahead of the 1994 Italian general elections, which Berlusconi nevertheless won in a landslide. In Nanni Moretti's segment, he and Silvio Orlando reprise their roles from The Yes Man (1991).

The Only Country In The World

1994

Carla Lonzi, A Feminist Story poster
NR

Alongside the public figure Carla Lonzi, considered to be so uncompromising, there is much to say about her private side, as fascinating as it was contradictory. There’s her tenderness and emotional fragility, her dependence on her partner, hence on a man; her complicated feelings about motherhood; and strained relationships with other women in the practice of collective harikiri called “consciousness-raising”. Drawing on invaluable, unreleased archive material, the filmmaker Francesca Archibugi, who was very close to Lonzi, brings her public life and private story, her ideas, and her legacy to the screen for the first time. These are key to understanding what women around the world are still going through and fighting for.

Carla Lonzi, A Feminist Story

2026

Carla Lonzi, A Feminist Story poster
NR

Alongside the public figure Carla Lonzi, considered to be so uncompromising, there is much to say about her private side, as fascinating as it was contradictory. There’s her tenderness and emotional fragility, her dependence on her partner, hence on a man; her complicated feelings about motherhood; and strained relationships with other women in the practice of collective harikiri called “consciousness-raising”. Drawing on invaluable, unreleased archive material, the filmmaker Francesca Archibugi, who was very close to Lonzi, brings her public life and private story, her ideas, and her legacy to the screen for the first time. These are key to understanding what women around the world are still going through and fighting for.

Carla Lonzi, A Feminist Story

2026

Towards Evening poster
7.1

Italy, 1977. Professor Bruschi is a retired widower who lives according to a strict routine he set for himself. An ardent old-style communist, he has always been at odds with the unconventional lifestyle led by his son and his hippieish girlfriend Stella. When their four-year-old daughter is left in his care out of the blue after the two break up, the old professor becomes a sort of father figure to the girl, growing fond of her. However he's once again challenged when Stella also arrives for a stay in his elegant villa, reclaiming custody of her daughter.

Towards Evening

1990

Towards Evening poster
7.1

Italy, 1977. Professor Bruschi is a retired widower who lives according to a strict routine he set for himself. An ardent old-style communist, he has always been at odds with the unconventional lifestyle led by his son and his hippieish girlfriend Stella. When their four-year-old daughter is left in his care out of the blue after the two break up, the old professor becomes a sort of father figure to the girl, growing fond of her. However he's once again challenged when Stella also arrives for a stay in his elegant villa, reclaiming custody of her daughter.

Towards Evening

1990

Renzo e Lucia poster
9.0

Loose adaptation of Italy's national epic, Alessandro Manzoni's “The Betrothed”. In war-torn 17th century Italy, shady feudal lord Don Rodrigo eyes young and beautiful Lucia, who loves—and is reciprocated by—commoner Renzo. The two lovers plan to marry in secret, but Rodrigo discovers it and they are forced to flee their village, becoming separated and each facing many dangers, including the Plague.

Renzo e Lucia

2004

Tomorrow poster
5.8

This ensemble drama details the friendships that grow between survivors of the 1997 Umbria earthquake. The townsfolk—adults, children and foreigners alike—deal with various issues as they try to resume normal lives in a homeless situation.

Tomorrow

2001