Barry Forshaw is the author of the Guide to Italian Cinema: Arthouse to Exploitation.

Available here.

Italian cinema is one of the most glorious and energetic celebrations of the medium that any nation has ever offered. For many years, this astonishing legacy was largely unseen, but the DVD revolution is making virtually everything available, from Steve Reeves' muscle epics to long-unseen Italian art house movies. The one characteristic that most of the great (and not so great) Italian movies have in common is the sheer individualism of the directors. This applies to populist moviemakers and the giants of serious cinema. While Fellini, Visconti and Antonioni have rightly assumed their places in the pantheon, so have such talented popular auteurs as Sergio Leone, who was doing something with the Western that no American director would dare do. All the glory of Italian cinema is celebrated here in comprehensive essays, along with every key film in an easy-to-use reference format.

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My report from the Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna

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Gillo Pontecorvo's film was one of the first movies to deal with the concentration camps. It starred Susan Strasberg and was inspired by the books of Primo Levi.

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We look at Federico Fellini's masterpiece 8 1/2, starring Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale.

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The masterpiece by the Taviani brothers is a wartime tale of a village in Tuscany on the eve of allied victory, as fascists and Germans take their terrible revenge. All is seen through the eyes of a young girl and the horror is fringed with comedy and wonder. I talk to Michael Brook about the film.

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We All Loved Each Other So Much, from 1974, was directed by Ettore Scola and starred Vittorio Gassman, Nino Manfredi, Stefania Sandrelli, Stefano Satta Flores, Giovanna Ralli and Aldo Fabrizi.

Dedicated to Vittorio De Sica, who died shortly before the film was released, the film is a portrait of post-war Italy, through the eyes of three ex-partisan friends who all fall in love with the same woman.

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Writer and critic Neil Young talks Carlo Lizzani's 1968 poliziottesco Banditi a Milano, (or Bandits in Milan or The Violent Four), starring Gian Maria Volonté, Tomas Milian, Don Backy and Ray Lovelock. Based on a real bank robbery, the film is credited with launching a popular Italian genre. Check out Neil's work here.

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Maathew Page joins John Bleasdale to discuss the career of Alice Rohrwacher and specifically her debut film from 2011, Heavenly Body, (Corpo Celeste). 13 year old Marta is preparing for her confirmation at the local Catholic church but soon finds that her own faith doesn't help her to fit in with the new home she has recently moved to.

Alice Rohrwacher's new film La Chimera is released this month in the UK.

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