CAPOLAVORO!

<p>Regular Russ Kilbourn and today's guest Roberta Cauchi-Santoro have just edited a collection of essays on screen adaptations of the novels of internationally successful Italian novelist Elena Ferrante. In this...

Regular Russ Kilbourn and today's guest Roberta Cauchi-Santoro have just edited a collection of essays on screen adaptations of the novels of internationally successful Italian novelist Elena Ferrante. In this episode...

<p>In this episode we talk about three films by director Paolo Sorrentino, about whose cinema Russ published a book in 2020: his most recent movie 'La Grazia (2025), about a fictional president of Italy at the end of...

<p>In this podcast we discuss Maria Giménez Cavallo's concept of 'cinema dell'anima', (Cinema of the Soul), an idea triggered by three Italian films from the last two decades. Maria's concept has three elements and she...

<p>Frank Burke is a leading film scholar with a long interest in Italian director Federico Fellini (1920-1993). Few artists were more obsessed with their dreams than Fellini. In this conversation we talk about his early...

<p>Introducing the Capolavoro podcast: 20 movies from 20 different directors, from Luchino Visconti’s influential 1943‘Ossessione’ to Maura Delpero’s brilliant 2024 ‘Vermiglio’. If you want to know more about post-war...

<p>In this extended series finale we talk about 1968 film 'Once Upon a Timer in the West', Sergio Leone's operatic and big budget return to the Spaghetti Western. Russ discusses the script, elements of the story...

<p>In Mario Martone's 2022 movie, based on Ermanno Rea's 2016 novel, 'nostalgia' is not a bittersweet reflection on the past but an obsessive need to return to the Naples of the main character's youth. We talk about the...

<p>In this episode we discuss the 1978 film - ‘L'albero degli zoccoli’, 'The tree of wooden clogs', directed, scripted, shot and edited by Ermano Olmi. We talk about the four stories that make up the film, the way in...

<p>In this episode we discuss the 2024 multi-award winning film 'Vermiglio' written and directed by Maura Delpero, set in Trentino and based on interviews and her own family history. We discuss the casting, of many...

<p>In this episode we discuss the penultimate film of Vittorio De Sica, one of the giants of Italian cinema. 'The Garden of the Finzi-Continis' (1970) is based closely on the 1962 semi-autobiographical novel by Georgio...

<p>After discussing Liliana Cavani's backstory, which included documentaries on the 3rd Reich and women in WW2, we unpick the unusual mix of storylines in 'The Night Porter', an English languarge film that, despite a...

<p>In this podcast we talk about Visconti's first feature film, based on the James M. Cain the novel 'The postman always rings twice', though set in the Ferrar region of Italy. Hated and banned by the fascists, the film...

<p>In this podcast we discuss Giani Amelio's neglected 1994 film on Albanian migration to Italy, 'Lamerica', multi award winning at the time and still resonant. The conversation moves from the opening, a fascist...

<p>In this podcast we explore what is generally agreed to be Paolo Sorrentino's masterwork, La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty, 2013). Russ talks about why he decided to write a book about his movies and why he thinks...