Roberto Faenza

Directing

Roberto Faenza

Born 1943-02-21 · Turin, Piedmont, Italy

Roberto Faenza (born 21 February 1943 in Turin) is an Italian film director. He received a degree in Political Science and a diploma at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Faenza made his directing debut in 1968 with the international success, Escalation, a film that describes the different sides of power through the relationship between a middle-class father and his hippie son. Immediately after that he directed H2S, an angry apology of the 1968 movement, seized two days after its release and not distributed since. Upon this sequestration he travelled to the United States to teach at the Federal City College of Washington DC.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Forza Italia! poster
8.0

Much-censored documentary encompassing thirty years of Italian politics under the governance of the Christian Democracy (DC), entirely composed of — occasionally dubbed — archival footage.

Forza Italia!

1977

Escalation poster
6.7

1968, London. Luca is living his 'swinging' years away from duties, while his father wants him to take the reins of the family business. He plots to have him kidnapped and placed in a sanitarium, where the young man undergoes electroshock therapy until 'normalised'. Luca is then made to marry a woman who is actually a psychiatrist hired to turn him into a perfect businessman.

Escalation

1968

Escalation poster
6.7

1968, London. Luca is living his 'swinging' years away from duties, while his father wants him to take the reins of the family business. He plots to have him kidnapped and placed in a sanitarium, where the young man undergoes electroshock therapy until 'normalised'. Luca is then made to marry a woman who is actually a psychiatrist hired to turn him into a perfect businessman.

Escalation

1968

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You poster
5.5

Precocious yet sensitive teenager James has a deep perception of the world but no idea how to live in it. Finding no help from his divorced parents nor his older memoir-writing sister, he decides to reject the beliefs adults try to push on him, starting with the college career that is looming over his last summer in New York, and embarks instead on a search for wisdom through nontraditional means...

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

2012

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You poster
5.5

Precocious yet sensitive teenager James has a deep perception of the world but no idea how to live in it. Finding no help from his divorced parents nor his older memoir-writing sister, he decides to reject the beliefs adults try to push on him, starting with the college career that is looming over his last summer in New York, and embarks instead on a search for wisdom through nontraditional means...

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

2012

Copkiller poster
5.8

A NYPD officer imprisons and tortures an admitted cop-killer, but finds the tables turned when his victim refuses to break and in fact urges more punishment.

Copkiller

1983

Copkiller poster
5.8

A NYPD officer imprisons and tortures an admitted cop-killer, but finds the tables turned when his victim refuses to break and in fact urges more punishment.

Copkiller

1983

Marianna Ucrìa poster
6.7

In 18th-century Sicily, deaf-mute highborn Marianna Ucrìa is forced to marry at age 13, bearing three children before even turning 16, when she finally gives birth to a boy. Despite everything, she'll find a way to emancipate herself from the oppressive social conventions of the time.

Marianna Ucrìa

1997

Marianna Ucrìa poster
6.7

In 18th-century Sicily, deaf-mute highborn Marianna Ucrìa is forced to marry at age 13, bearing three children before even turning 16, when she finally gives birth to a boy. Despite everything, she'll find a way to emancipate herself from the oppressive social conventions of the time.

Marianna Ucrìa

1997

Come Into the Light poster
7.1

In 1990s Palermo, Pino Puglisi is a priest from the neglected Brancaccio neighborhood dedicated in helping kids to get off the streets and creating an embracing place of hope and solidarity in his church, which means trouble for the local Mafia. He continues his solitary fight until the bitter end.

Come Into the Light

2005

Come Into the Light poster
7.1

In 1990s Palermo, Pino Puglisi is a priest from the neglected Brancaccio neighborhood dedicated in helping kids to get off the streets and creating an embracing place of hope and solidarity in his church, which means trouble for the local Mafia. He continues his solitary fight until the bitter end.

Come Into the Light

2005

The Days of Abandonment poster
5.8

Olga's life is shattered when her husband leaves her. This makes her fall into a period of self-degradation and self-destructive behaviors.

The Days of Abandonment

2005

The Days of Abandonment poster
5.8

Olga's life is shattered when her husband leaves her. This makes her fall into a period of self-degradation and self-destructive behaviors.

The Days of Abandonment

2005

The Soul Keeper poster
6.6

Zurich, 1905. Nineteen-year-old Russian Sabina Spielrein is put by her parents in a psychiatric hospital, suffering from a severe form of hysteria and refusing to eat. A compassionate doctor, Carl Gustav Jung, takes her under his care and, for the first time, experiments with the psychoanalytical method of his teacher Sigmund Freud. Thus is born a sweeping story of love and passion, of body and soul, soaring to the utmost heights, but also plunging to the darkest depths of the 20th century.

The Soul Keeper

2003

The Soul Keeper poster
6.6

Zurich, 1905. Nineteen-year-old Russian Sabina Spielrein is put by her parents in a psychiatric hospital, suffering from a severe form of hysteria and refusing to eat. A compassionate doctor, Carl Gustav Jung, takes her under his care and, for the first time, experiments with the psychoanalytical method of his teacher Sigmund Freud. Thus is born a sweeping story of love and passion, of body and soul, soaring to the utmost heights, but also plunging to the darkest depths of the 20th century.

The Soul Keeper

2003

The Lost Lover poster
3.7

After their son dies, a Jewish family moves from London to Israel in an attempt to piece their lives back together. The mother finds a way out of her depression through a relationship with a younger man—which doesn't seem to bother her husband. Meanwhile, their daughter begins dating a Palestinian handyman.

The Lost Lover

1999

The Lost Lover poster
3.7

After their son dies, a Jewish family moves from London to Israel in an attempt to piece their lives back together. The mother finds a way out of her depression through a relationship with a younger man—which doesn't seem to bother her husband. Meanwhile, their daughter begins dating a Palestinian handyman.

The Lost Lover

1999

The Case of Unfaithful Klara poster
4.9

In Prague, a musician is consumed by jealousy for his beautiful girlfriend. He hires a private eye to spy on her, but the plan backfires...

The Case of Unfaithful Klara

2009

The Case of Unfaithful Klara poster
4.9

In Prague, a musician is consumed by jealousy for his beautiful girlfriend. He hires a private eye to spy on her, but the plan backfires...

The Case of Unfaithful Klara

2009

Bangkok 24/7 - Italian Eyes poster
NR

This short film captures the vibrant moments, places, and emotions experienced and recorded over 24 hours in Bangkok, as seen through the eyes of talented Italian directors, producers, and actors who were invited to visit Thailand’s capital. Each of them documented unexpected experiences of the city at different times of the day and night. The result is an honest and unpredictable visual diary that reveals surprising perspectives of Bangkok.

Bangkok 24/7 - Italian Eyes

2026

Pereira Declares poster
6.7

Lisbon, 1938. Mr. Pereira is the editor of the culture section of an evening paper. Although fascism is on the rise in Europe, like in nearby civil war Spain or even inside Portugal itself in the form of Salazar's regime, Pereira only concerns himself with writing bios and translating French novels. Things change after he hires a young writer as his assistant, getting to know also his girlfriend – both opponents to the regime – and reluctantly helps them when they begin to get in trouble for subversive activities. Eventually, he's forced to take a stand...

Pereira Declares

1995

Pereira Declares poster
6.7

Lisbon, 1938. Mr. Pereira is the editor of the culture section of an evening paper. Although fascism is on the rise in Europe, like in nearby civil war Spain or even inside Portugal itself in the form of Salazar's regime, Pereira only concerns himself with writing bios and translating French novels. Things change after he hires a young writer as his assistant, getting to know also his girlfriend – both opponents to the regime – and reluctantly helps them when they begin to get in trouble for subversive activities. Eventually, he's forced to take a stand...

Pereira Declares

1995

Look to the Sky poster
6.5

A Jewish boy living in Amsterdam at the onset of World War II is taken to a concentration camp with his parents. Based on the memoir of Holocaust survivor Jona Oberski.

Look to the Sky

1993

Look to the Sky poster
6.5

A Jewish boy living in Amsterdam at the onset of World War II is taken to a concentration camp with his parents. Based on the memoir of Holocaust survivor Jona Oberski.

Look to the Sky

1993