title: Cinema of Italy

text: The first film of the genre Telefoni Bianchi was "The Private Secretary" (1931), by Goffredo Alessandrini. Among the authors, Mario Camerini is the most representative director of the genre. After having practiced the most diverse trends in the 1930s, he happily moved into the territory of sentimental comedy with "What Scoundrels Men Are!" (1932), "Il signor Max" (1937) and "Department Store" (1939). In other films he compares himself with the Hollywood-style comedy on the model of Frank Capra ("Heartbeat", 1939) and the surreal one of René Clair ("I'll Give a Million", 1936). Camerini is interested in the figure of the typical and popular Italian, so much so that he anticipates some elements of the future Italian comedy. His major interpreter, Vittorio De Sica, will continue his lesson in "Maddalena, Zero for Conduct" (1940) and "Teresa Venerdì" (1941), emphasizing above all the direction of the actors and the care for the settings.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Other directors include Mario Mattoli ("Schoolgirl Diary", 1941), Jean de Limur ("Apparition", 1944) and Max Neufeld ("The House of Shame", 1938; "A Thousand Lire a Month", 1939). The realist comedies of Mario Bonnard ("Before the Postman", 1942; "The Peddler and the Lady", 1943) are partially different in character, which partially deviate from the imprint of Telefoni Bianchi.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In the fascist propaganda cinema, at the beginning, the representations of the squads and the first fascist actions were rare. "The Old Guard" (1934), by Alessandro Blasetti evokes the supposed vitalistic spontaneity of squadism with populist tones, but is not appreciated by official critics. "Black Shirt" (1933), by Giovacchino Forzano, made for the 10th anniversary of the March on Rome, celebrated the regime's policies (the reclamation of the Pontine marshes and the construction of Littoria) alternating narrative sequences with documentary passages.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: With political consolidation, the government authority required the film industry to strengthen the regime's identification with the country's history and culture. Hence the intention to reread Italian history in an authoritarian perspective, teleologically reducing every past event to a harbinger of the "fascist revolution", in continuity with the historiographical work of Gioacchino Volpe. After the first attempts in this direction, aimed above all at underlining the alleged link between the Risorgimento and Fascism ("Villafranca" by Forzano, 1933; "1860" by Blasetti, 1933), the trend reached its peak just before the war. "Cavalry" (1936), by Goffredo Alessandrini, evokes the nobility of the Savoy fighters by presenting their deeds as anticipations of squadism. "Condottieri" (1937) by Luis Trenker, tells the story of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, explicitly establishing a parallel with Benito Mussolini, while "" (1937) by Carmine Gallone (one of the greatest financial efforts of the time), it celebrates the Roman Empire and indirectly the Fascist Empire.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The invasion of Ethiopia gives Italian directors the opportunity to extend the horizons of the settings. "The Great Appeal" (1936) by Mario Camerini, exalts imperialism by describing the "new land" as an opportunity for work and redemption, contrasting the heroism of young soldiers with bourgeois fearlessness. The anti-pacifist controversy that accompanies colonial enterprises is also evident in "Lo squadrone bianco" (1936) by Augusto Genina, which combines propaganda rhetoric with notable battle sequences shot in the Italian Tripolitania desert. Most of the films celebrating the empire are predominantly documentaries, aimed at disguising the war as a struggle of civilization against barbarism. The Spanish Civil War is described in the documentaries "Los novios de la muerte" (1936) by Romolo Marcellini and "Arriba España, España una, grande, libre!" (1939) by Giorgio Ferroni, and is the backdrop for another dozen films, among which the most spectacular is "The Siege of the Alcazar" (1940) by Augusto Genina.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Films such as "Pietro Micca" (1938) by Aldo Vergano, "Ettore Fieramosca" (1938), made in the same year by Alessandro Blasetti, and "Fanfulla da Lodi" (1940) by Giulio Antamoro can also be counted as propaganda films (albeit indirect), in which, a pretext for the epic narration of historical events, a clear apology for dedication to the homeland (in some cases even to the point of personal sacrifice) is made in the same vein as colonial films with a contemporary setting.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: With Italy's participation in the World War II, the fascist regime further strengthens its control over production and requires a more decisive commitment to propaganda. In addition to the now canonical documentaries, short films and newsreels, there is also an increase in feature films in praise of Italian war enterprises. Among the most representative we find "Bengasi" (1942) by Genina, "Gente dell'aria" (1943) by Esodo Pratelli, "The Three Pilots" (1942) by Mario Mattoli (based on a screenplay by Vittorio Mussolini), "Il treno crociato" (1943) by Carlo Campogalliani, "Harlem" (1943) by Carmine Gallone and "Men of the Mountain" (1943) by Aldo Vergano under the supervision of Blasetti. "Uomini sul fondo" (1941) by Francesco De Robertis is also notable due to its almost documentary approach.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The most successful film of the period is "We the Living" (1942) by Goffredo Alessandrini, made as a single film, but then distributed in two parts due to its excessive length. Referable to the genre of anti-communist drama, this sombre melodrama (set in the Soviet Union) is inspired by the novel of the same name by the writer Ayn Rand which exalts the most radical philosophical individualism. Precisely because of this generic criticism of authoritarianism, the diptych could be interpreted as a mild accusation against the fascist regime.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Among the directors who give their contribution to the war propaganda there is also Roberto Rossellini, author of a trilogy composed of "The White Ship" (1941), "A Pilot Returns" (1942) and "The Man with a Cross" (1943). Anticipating in some ways his works of maturity, the director adopted a modest and immediate style, which does not contrast the effectiveness of the propaganda but neither does it exalt the dominant war rhetoric; it was the same anti-spectacular approach to which he remained faithful throughout his life.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: By the end of World War II, the Italian "neorealist" movement had begun to take shape. Neorealist films typically dealt with the working class (in contrast to the "Telefoni Bianchi"), and were shot on location. Many neorealist films, but not all, used non-professional actors. Though the term "neorealism" was used for the first time to describe Luchino Visconti’s 1943 film, "Ossessione", there were several important precursors to the movement, most notably Camerini's "What Scoundrels Men Are!" (1932), which was the first Italian film shot entirely on location, and Blasetti's 1942 film, "Four Steps in the Clouds".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "Ossessione" angered Fascist officials. Upon viewing the film, Vittorio Mussolini is reported to have shouted, "This is not Italy!" before walking out of the theater. The film was subsequently banned in the Fascist-controlled parts of Italy. While neorealism exploded after the war, and was incredibly influential at the international level, neorealist films made up only a small percentage of Italian films produced during this period, as postwar Italian moviegoers preferred escapist comedies starring actors such as Totò and Alberto Sordi.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Neorealist works such as Roberto Rossellini's trilogy "Rome, Open City" (1945), "Paisà" (1946), and "Germany, Year Zero" (1948), with professional actors such as Anna Magnani and a number of non-professional actors, attempted to describe the difficult economic and moral conditions of postwar Italy and the changes in public mentality in everyday life. Visconti's "The Earth Trembles" (1948) was shot on location in a Sicilian fishing village, and used local non-professional actors. Giuseppe De Santis, on other hand, used actors such as Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman in his 1949 film, "Bitter Rice", which is set in the Po Valley during rice-harvesting season.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Poetry and cruelty of life were harmonically combined in the works that Vittorio De Sica wrote and directed together with screenwriter Cesare Zavattini: among them, "Shoeshine" (1946), "The Bicycle Thief" (1948) and "Miracle in Milan" (1951). The 1952 film "Umberto D." showed a poor old man with his little dog, who must beg for alms against his dignity in the loneliness of the new society. This work is perhaps De Sica's masterpiece and one of the most important works in Italian cinema. It was not a commercial success and since then it has been shown on Italian television only a few times. Yet it is perhaps the most violent attack, in the apparent quietness of the action, against the rules of the new economy, the new mentality, the new values, and it embodies both a conservative and a progressive view.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Although "Umberto D." is considered the end of the neorealist period, later films such as Federico Fellini's "La Strada" (1954) and De Sica's 1960 film "Two Women" (for which Sophia Loren won the Oscar for Best Actress) are grouped with the genre. Director Pier Paolo Pasolini's first film, "Accattone" (1961), shows a strong neorealist influence. Italian neorealist cinema influenced filmmakers around the world, and helped inspire other film movements, such as the French New Wave and the Polish Film School. The Neorealist period is often simply referred to as "The Golden Age" of Italian cinema by critics, filmmakers, and scholars.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Calligrafismo is in a sharp contrast to Telefoni Bianchi-American style comedies and is rather artistic, highly formalistic, expressive in complexity and deals mainly with contemporary literary material, above all the pieces of Italian realism from authors like Corrado Alvaro, Ennio Flaiano, Emilio Cecchi, Francesco Pasinetti, Vitaliano Brancati, Mario Bonfantini and Umberto Barbaro.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The best-known exponent of this genre is Mario Soldati, a long-time writer and director destined to establish himself with films of literary ancestry and solid formal structure. His films put at the center of the story characters endowed with a dramatic and psychological strength foreign to both white-phone cinema and propaganda films, and found in works such as "Dora Nelson" (1939), "Piccolo mondo antico" (1941), "Tragic Night" (1942), "Malombra" (1942) and "In High Places" (1943). Luigi Chiarini, already active as a critic, deepens the trend in his "Sleeping Beauty" (1942), "Street of the Five Moons" (1942) and "The Innkeeper" (1944). The internal conflicts of the characters and the scenographic richness are also recurrent in the first films by Alberto Lattuada ("Giacomo the Idealist", 1943) and Renato Castellani ("A Pistol Shot", 1942), dominated by a sense of moral and cultural decay that seems to anticipate the end of the war.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Another important example of a calligraphic film is the film version of "The Betrothed" (1941), by Mario Camerini (very faithful in the staging of Manzoni's masterpiece), which due to the perceived income, became the most popular feature film between 1941 and 1942.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The pioneer of the Italian cartoon was Francesco Guido, better known as Gibba. Immediately after the end of World War II, he produced the first animated medium-length film of Italian cinema entitled "L'ultimo sciuscià" (1946), which took up themes typical of neorealism and in the following decade the feature films "Rompicollo and I picchiatelli", in collaboration with Antonio Attanasi. In the 1970s, after many animated documentaries, Gibba himself will return to the feature film with the erotic "Il nano e la strega" (1973) and "Il racconto della giungla" (1974). Also interesting are the contributions of the painter and set designer Emanuele Luzzati who, after some valuable short films, made in 1976 one of the masterpieces of Italian animation: "Il flauto magico" ("The Magic Flute"), based on the homonymous opera by Mozart.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In 1949, the designer Nino Pagot presented "The Dynamite Brothers" at the Venice Film Festival, one of the first animated feature films of the time, released in theaters in conjunction with "La Rosa di Bagdad" (1949), made by the animator Anton Gino Domeneghini. In the early 1950s, the cartoonist Romano Scarpa created the short film "La piccola fiammiferaia" (1953), which remains, like the two previous films, little more than an isolated case. Apart from these examples, Italian animation in the 1950s and 1960s failed to become a major reality and remains confined to the television sector, due to the various commissions provided by the Carosello container.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: But it is with Bruno Bozzetto that the Italian cartoon reaches an international dimension: his debut feature film "West and Soda" (1965), an irresistible caricature of the Western genre, received acclaim from both audiences and critics. A few years later his second work entitled "VIP my Brother Superman" was released, distributed in 1968. After many satirical short films (centered on the popular figure of "Signor Rossi") he returned to the feature film with what is considered his most ambitious work, "Allegro Non Troppo" (1977). Inspired by the well-known Disney "Fantasia", it is a mixed media film, in which animated episodes are molded to the notes of many classical music pieces. Another illustrator to underline is the artist Pino Zac who in 1971 shot (again with mixed technique) "The Nonexistent Knight", based on the novel of the same name by Italo Calvino.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In the 1990s, Italian animation entered a new phase of production due to the Turin Lanterna Magica studio which in 1996, under the direction of Enzo D'Alò, created the intriguing Christmas fairy tale "La freccia azzurra", based on a short story by Gianni Rodari. The film was a success and paved the way for other feature films. In fact, in 1998, "Lucky and Zorba" based on a novel by Luis Sepúlveda was distributed, which attracted the favor of the public, reaching a new apex in the Italian animated cinema.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The director Enzo d'Alò, who separated from the Lanterna Magica studio, produced other films in the following years such as "Momo" (2001) and "Opopomoz" (2003). The Turin studio distributed on its behalf the films "Aida of the Trees" (2001) and "Totò Sapore e la magica storia della pizza" (2003), accompanied by a good response at the box office. In 2003, the first entirely Italian animated film in computer graphics was released entitled "L'apetta Giulia and Signora Vita", directed by Paolo Modugno. To underline the work "La Storia di Leo" (2007) by director Mario Cambi, winner, the following year, at the Giffoni Film Festival.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In 2010, the first Italian animated film in 3D technology was made, directed by Iginio Straffi, entitled "", based on the homonymous series; in the meantime Enzo D'Alò returns to theaters, presenting his "Pinocchio" (2012). In 2012, the film "Gladiators of Rome", also shot in 3D technology, received credit from the public, followed by the feature film "" (2014), both again by Iginio Straffi. Finally, "The Art of Happiness" (2013) by Alessandro Rak, a film made in Naples by 40 authors, including only 10 designers and animators from the Mad Entertainment studio, a true absolute record for an animated film was made. "Cinderella the Cat" (2017), taken from the text "Pentamerone" by Giambattista Basile, came out of the same studio. The work won two David di Donatello's, one of which was for special effects, becoming the first animated film to be nominated, and win, in this category.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Starting from the mid-1950s, Italian cinema freed itself from neorealism by tackling purely existential topics, films with different styles and points of view, often more introspective than descriptive. Thus we are witnessing a new flowering of filmmakers who contribute in a fundamental way to the development of the art.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Michelangelo Antonioni is the first to establish himself, becoming a reference author for all contemporary cinema. This charge of novelty is recognizable from the beginning as the director's first work, "Story of a Love Affair" (1950), marks an indelible break with the world of neorealism and the consequent birth of a modern cinema. Antonioni investigated the world of the Italian bourgeoisie with a critical eye, left out of the post-war cinematic lens. In doing so, works of psychological research such as "I Vinti" (1952), "The Lady Without Camelias" (1953) and "Le Amiche" (1955), free adaptation of the short story "Tra donne sole" by Cesare Pavese, came to light. In 1957, he staged the unusual proletarian drama "Il Grido", with which he obtained critical acclaim.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In 1955, the David di Donatello was established, with its Best Picture category being awarded for the first time only in 1970.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Federico Fellini is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Fellini won the Palme d'Or for "La Dolce Vita", was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, and won four in the category of Best Foreign Language Film, the most for any director in the history of the academy. He received an honorary award for Lifetime Achievement at the 65th Academy Awards in Los Angeles. His other well-known films include "La Strada" (1954), "Nights of Cabiria" (1957), "Juliet of the Spirits" (1967), "Satyricon" (1969), "Roma" (1972), "Amarcord" (1973), and "Fellini's Casanova" (1976).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Personal and highly idiosyncratic visions of society, Fellini's films are a unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy and desire. The adjectives "Fellinian" and "Felliniesque" are "synonymous with any kind of extravagant, fanciful, even baroque image in the cinema and in art in general". "La Dolce Vita" contributed the term "paparazzi" to the English language, derived from Paparazzo, the photographer friend of journalist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Contemporary filmmakers such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, Emir Kusturica, and David Lynch have cited Fellini's influence on their work.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Although "Umberto D." is considered the end of the neorealist period this, subsequent works turned toward lighter, sweetened and mildly optimistic atmospheres, more coherent with the improving conditions of Italy just before the economic boom; this genre became known as "pink neorealism".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The precursor of pink neorealism was Renato Castellani, who helped bring realist comedy into vogue with "Under the Sun of Rome" (1948) and "It's Forever Springtime" (1949), both shot on location and with non-professional actors, and above all with public success and criticism of "Two Cents Worth of Hope" (1952), which laid the foundations for pink neorealism.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Notable films of pink neorealism, which combine popular comedy and realist motifs, are "Pane, amore e fantasia" (1953) by Luigi Comencini and "Poveri ma belli" (1957) by Dino Risi, both works in perfect harmony with the evolution of the Italian costume. The large influx at the box office from the two films remained almost unchanged in the sequels "Bread, Love and Jealousy" (1954), "Scandal in Sorrento" (1955) and "Pretty But Poor" (1957), also directed by Luigi Comencini and Dino Risi.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Similarly, stories of daily life told with gentle irony (without losing sight of the social fabric) can be found in the work of the Milanese Luciano Emmer, whose films "Sunday in August" (1950), "Three Girls from Rome" (1952) and "High School" (1954), are the best known examples. Another film of the pink neorealism genre was "Susanna Whipped Cream" (1957) by Steno.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: This trend allowed some actresses to become real celebrities, such as Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Silvana Pampanini, Lucia Bosé, Barbara Bouchet, Eleonora Rossi Drago, Silvana Mangano, Virna Lisi, Claudia Cardinale and Stefania Sandrelli. Soon pink neorealism was replaced by the Commedia all'italiana, a unique genre that, born on an ideally humouristic line, talked instead very seriously about important social themes.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Commedia all'italiana ("Comedy in the Italian way") is an Italian film genre born in Italy in the 1950s and developed in the following 1960s and 1970s. It is widely considered to have started with Mario Monicelli's "Big Deal on Madonna Street" in 1958 and derives its name from the title of Pietro Germi's "Divorce Italian Style", 1961. According to most of the critics, "La Terrazza" by Ettore Scola (1980) is the last work considered part of the Commedia all'italiana.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Rather than a specific genre, the term indicates a period (approximately from the late 1950s to the early 1970s) in which the Italian film industry was producing many successful comedies, with some common traits like satire of manners, farcical and grotesque overtones, a strong focus on "spicy" social issues of the period (like sexual matters, divorce, contraception, marriage of the clergy, the economic rise of the country and its various consequences, the traditional religious influence of the Catholic Church) and a prevailing middle-class setting, often characterized by a substantial background of sadness and social criticism that diluted the comic contents.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The genre of Commedia all'italiana differs markedly from the light and disengaged comedy from the so-called "pink neorealism" trend, in vogue until all of the 1950s, since, starting from the lesson of neorealism, is based on a more frank adherence in writing to reality; therefore, alongside the comic situations and plots typical of traditional comedy, always combines, with irony, a biting and sometimes bitter satire of manners, which reflects the evolution of Italian society in those years.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The success of films belonging to the "Commedia all'italiana" genre is due both to the presence of an entire generation of great actors, who knew how to masterfully embody the vices and virtues, and the attempts at emancipation but also the vulgarities of the Italians of the time, both to the careful work of directors, storytellers and screenwriters, who invented a real genre, with essentially new connotations, managing to find precious material for their cinematographic creations in the folds of a rapid evolution with many contradictions.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Among the actors the main representatives are Alberto Sordi, Ugo Tognazzi, Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni and Nino Manfredi, while among the actresses is Monica Vitti. Among directors and films, in 1961 Dino Risi directed "Una vita difficile" ("A Difficult Life"), then "Il Sorpasso" ("The Easy Life"), now a cult-movie, followed by: "I Mostri" ("The Monsters", also known as "15 From Rome"), "In nome del popolo italiano" ("In the Name of the Italian People") and "Profumo di donna" ("Scent of a Woman"). Monicelli's works include "La grande guerra" ("The Great War"), "I compagni" ("The Organizer"), "L'armata Brancaleone", "Vogliamo i colonnelli" ("We Want the Colonels"), "Romanzo popolare" ("Come Home and Meet My Wife") and the "Amici miei" ("My Friends") series.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: For the majority of critics the true and proper "Commedia all'italiana" is to be considered definitively waned since the beginning of the 1980s, giving way, at most, to an "Commedia italiana" ("Italian comedy").


title: Cinema of Italy

text: At this time, on the more commercial side of production, the phenomenon of Totò, a Neapolitan actor who is acclaimed as the major Italian comic, exploded. His films (often with Aldo Fabrizi, Peppino De Filippo and almost always with Mario Castellani) expressed a sort of neorealistic satire, in the means of a "guitto" (a "hammy" actor) as well as with the art of the great dramatic actor he also was. Totò is one of the symbols of the cinema of Naples.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: A "film-machine" who produced dozens of titles per year, his repertoire was frequently repeated. His personal story (a prince born in the poorest "rione" (section of the city) of Naples), his unique twisted face, his special mimic expressions and his gestures created an inimitable personage and made him one of the most beloved Italians of the 1960s.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Some of his best-known films are "Fear and Sand" by Mario Mattoli, "Toto Tours Italy" by Mario Mattoli, "Toto the Sheik" by Mario Mattoli, "Cops and Robbers" by Mario Monicelli, "Toto and the Women" by Mario Monicelli, "Totò Tarzan" by Mario Mattoli, "Toto the Third Man" by Mario Mattoli, "Toto and the King of Rome" by Mario Monicelli and Steno, "Toto in Color" by Steno (one of the first Italian color movies, 1952, in Ferraniacolor), "Big Deal on Madonna Street" by Mario Monicelli, "Toto, Peppino, and the Hussy" by Camillo Mastrocinque and "The Law Is the Law" by Christian-Jaque. Pier Paolo Pasolini's "The Hawks and the Sparrows" and the episode "Che cosa sono le nuvole" from "Caprice Italian Style" (the latter released after his death), showed his dramatic skills.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: A series of black-and-white films based on Don Camillo and Peppone characters created by the Italian writer and journalist Giovannino Guareschi were made between 1952 and 1965. These were French-Italian coproductions, and starred Fernandel as the Italian priest Don Camillo and Gino Cervi as Giuseppe 'Peppone' Bottazzi, the Communist Mayor of their rural town. The titles are: "The Little World of Don Camillo" (1952), "The Return of Don Camillo" (1953), "Don Camillo's Last Round" (1955), "" (1961), and "Don Camillo in Moscow" (1965).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The movies were a huge commercial success in their native countries. In 1952, "Little World of Don Camillo" became the highest-grossing film in both Italy and France, while "The Return of Don Camillo" was the second most popular film of 1953 at the Italian and French box office.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Mario Camerini began filming the film "Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi", but had to stop filming due to Fernandel's falling ill, which resulted in his untimely death. The film was then realized in 1972 with Gastone Moschin playing the role of Don Camillo and Lionel Stander as Peppone.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: A new Don Camillo film, titled "The World of Don Camillo", was also remade in 1983, an Italian production with Terence Hill directing and also starring as Don Camillo. Colin Blakely performed Peppone in one of his last film roles.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Hollywood on the Tiber is a phrase used to describe the period in the 1950s and 1960s when the Italian capital of Rome emerged as a major location for international filmmaking attracting many foreign productions to the Cinecittà studios, the largest film studio in Europe. By contrast to the native Italian film industry, these movies were made in English for global release. Although the primary markets for such films were American and British audiences, they enjoyed widespread popularity in other countries, including Italy.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In the late 1940s, Hollywood studios began to shift production abroad to Europe. Italy was, along with Britain, one of the major destinations for American film companies. Large-budget films shot at Cinecittà during the "Hollywood on the Tiber" era such as "Quo Vadis" (1951), "Roman Holiday" (1953), "Ben-Hur" (1959), and "Cleopatra" (1963) were made in English with international casts and sometimes, but not always, Italian settings or themes.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The heyday of what was dubbed '"Hollywood on the Tiber" was between 1950 and 1970, during which time many of the most famous names in world cinema made films in Italy. The phrase "Hollywood on Tiber", a reference to the river that runs through Rome, was coined in 1950 by "Time" magazine during the making of "Quo Vadis".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Sword-and-sandal, also known as "peplum" ("pepla" plural), is a subgenre of largely Italian-made historical, mythological, or Biblical epics mostly set in the Greco-Roman antiquity or the Middle Ages. These films attempted to emulate the big-budget Hollywood historical epics of the time.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: With the release of 1958's "Hercules", starring American bodybuilder Steve Reeves, the Italian film industry gained entree to the American film market. These films were low-budget costume/adventure dramas, and had immediate appeal with both European and American audiences. Besides the many films starring a variety of muscle men as Hercules, heroes such as Samson and Italian fictional hero Maciste were common.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Sometimes dismissed as low-quality escapist fare, the sword-and-sandal allowed newer directors such as Sergio Leone and Mario Bava a means of breaking into the film industry. Some, such as Mario Bava's "Hercules in the Haunted World" (Italian: Ercole Al Centro Della Terra) are considered seminal works in their own right.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: As the genre matured, budgets sometimes increased, as evidenced in 1962's "I sette gladiatori" ("The Seven Gladiators" in 1964 US release), a wide-screen epic with impressive sets and matte-painting work. Most sword-and-sandal films were in color, whereas previous Italian efforts had often been black and white.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Musicarello (pl. musicarelli) is a film subgenre which emerged in Italy and which is characterised by the presence in main roles of young singers, already famous among their peers, and their new record album. The genre began in the late 1950s, and had its peak of production in the 1960s.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The film which started the genre is considered to be "I ragazzi del Juke-Box" by Lucio Fulci (1959). The musicarelli were inspired by two American musicals, in particular "Jailhouse Rock" by Richard Thorpe (1957) and earlier "Love Me Tender" by Robert D. Webb (1956), both starring Elvis Presley.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: At the heart of the musicarello is a hit song, or a song that the producers hoped would become a hit, that usually shares its title with the film itself and sometimes has lyrics depicting a part of the plot. In the films there are almost always tender and chaste love stories accompanied by the desire to have fun and dance without thoughts. Musicarelli reflect the desire and need for emancipation of young Italians, highlighting some generational frictions.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: With the arrival of the 1968 student protests the genre started to decline, because the generational revolt became explicitly political and at the same time there was no longer a music equally directed to the whole youth-audience. For some time the duo Al Bano and Romina Power continued to enjoy success in musicarello films, but their films (like their songs) were a return to the traditional melody and to the musical films of the previous decades.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: On the heels of the sword-and-sandal craze, a related genre, the Spaghetti Western arose and was popular both in Italy and elsewhere. These films differed from traditional westerns by being filmed in Europe on limited budgets, but featured vivid cinematography. The term was used by foreign critics because most of these westerns were produced and directed by Italians.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The most popular Spaghetti Westerns were those of Sergio Leone, credited as the inventor of the genre, whose Dollars Trilogy (1964's "A Fistful of Dollars", an unauthorized remake of the Japanese film "Yojimbo" by Akira Kurosawa; 1965's "For a Few Dollars More", an original sequel; and 1966's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", a World-famous prequel), featuring Clint Eastwood as a character marketed as "the Man with No Name" and notorious scores by Ennio Morricone, came to define the genre along with "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Another popular Spaghetti Western film is Sergio Corbucci "Django" (1966), starring Franco Nero as the titular character, another "Yojimbo" plagiarism, produced to capitalize on the success of "A Fistful of Dollars". The original "Django" was followed by both an authorized sequel (1987's "Django Strikes Again") and an overwhelming number of unauthorized uses of the same character in other films.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Also considered Spaghetti Westerns is a film genre which combined traditional western ambiance with a Commedia all'italiana-type comedy; films including "They Call Me Trinity" (1970) and "Trinity Is Still My Name" (1971), both by Enzo Barboni, which featured Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, the stage names of Carlo Pedersoli and Mario Girotti.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Terence Hill and Bud Spencer made numerous films together. Most of their early films were Spaghetti Westerns, beginning with "God Forgives... I Don't!" (1967), the first part of a trilogy, followed by "Ace High" (1968) and "Boot Hill" (1969), but they also starred in comedies such as "... All the Way, Boys!" (1972) and "Watch Out, We're Mad!" (1974).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The next films shot by the couple of actors, almost all comedies, were "Two Missionaries" (1974), "Crime Busters" (1977), "Odds and Evens" (1978), "I'm for the Hippopotamus" (1979), "Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure" (1981), "Go for It" (1983), "Double Trouble" (1984), "Miami Supercops" (1985) and "Troublemakers" (1994).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: During the 1960s and 1970s, Italian filmmakers Mario Bava, Riccardo Freda, Antonio Margheriti and Dario Argento developed "giallo" (plural "gialli", from "giallo", Italian for "yellow") horror films that become classics and influenced the genre in other countries. Representative films include: "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" (1963), "Castle of Blood" (1964), "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" (1970), "Twitch of the Death Nerve" (1971), "Deep Red" (1975) and "Suspiria" (1977).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "Giallo" is a genre of mystery fiction and thrillers and often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, sexploitation, and, less frequently, supernatural horror elements. "Giallo" developed in the mid-to-late 1960s, peaked in popularity during the 1970s, and subsequently declined in commercial mainstream filmmaking over the next few decades, though examples continue to be produced. It was a predecessor to, and had significant influence on, the later American slasher film genre.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "Giallo" usually blends the atmosphere and suspense of thriller fiction with elements of horror fiction (such as slasher violence) and eroticism (similar to the French "fantastique" genre), and often involves a mysterious killer whose identity is not revealed until the final act of the film. Most critics agree that the "giallo" represents a distinct category with unique features, but there is some disagreement on what exactly defines a "giallo" film.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "Giallo" films are generally characterized as gruesome murder-mystery thrillers that combine the suspense elements of detective fiction with scenes of shocking horror, featuring excessive bloodletting, stylish camerawork and often jarring musical arrangements. The archetypal "giallo" plot involves a mysterious, black-gloved psychopathic killer who stalks and butchers a series of beautiful women. While most "gialli" involve a human killer, some also feature a supernatural element.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The typical "giallo" protagonist is an outsider of some type, often a traveller, tourist, outcast, or even an alienated or disgraced private investigator, and frequently a young woman, often a young woman who is lonely or alone in a strange or foreign situation or environment ("gialli" rarely or less frequently feature law enforcement officers as chief protagonists).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The protagonists are generally or often unconnected to the murders before they begin and are drawn to help find the killer through their role as a witness to one of the murders. The mystery is the identity of the killer, who is often revealed in the climax to be another key character, who conceals his or her identity with a disguise (usually some combination of hat, mask, sunglasses, gloves, and trench coat). Thus, the literary whodunit element of the "giallo" novels is retained, while being filtered through horror genre elements and Italy's long-standing tradition of opera and staged grand guignol drama. The structure of "giallo" films is also sometimes reminiscent of the so-called "weird menace" pulp magazine horror mystery genre alongside Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Poliziotteschi (plural of poliziottesco) films constitute a subgenre of crime and action film that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as "polizieschi all'italiana", Euro-crime, Italo-crime, spaghetti crime films', or simply Italian crime films.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Influenced by both 1970s French crime films and gritty 1960s and 1970s American cop films and vigilante films, poliziotteschi films were made amidst an atmosphere of socio-political turmoil in Italy and increasing Italian crime rates.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The films generally featured graphic and brutal violence, organized crime, car chases, vigilantism, heists, gunfights, and corruption up to the highest levels. The protagonists were generally tough working class loners, willing to act outside a corrupt or overly bureaucratic system. Most notable international actors acted in this genre of films such Alain Delon, Henry Silva, Fred Williamson, Charles Bronson, Tomas Milian and others international stars.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Franco and Ciccio were a comedy duo formed by Italian actors Franco Franchi (1928–1992) and Ciccio Ingrassia (1922–2003), particularly popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Together, they appeared in 116 films, usually as the main characters, and occasionally as supporting characters in films featuring well-known actors such as Totò, Domenico Modugno, Vittorio Gassman, Buster Keaton and Vincent Price.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Their collaboration began in 1954 in the theater field, and ended with Franchi's death in 1992. The two made their cinema debuts in 1960 with the film "Appuntamento a Ischia". After, seeing them in this film Modugno who, wanted them with him in his film, and remained active until 1984 when they shot their last film together, "Kaos", although there were some interruptions in 1973, and from 1975 to 1980.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: They acted in films certainly made in a short time and with few means, such as those shot with director Marcello Ciorciolini, sometimes even making a dozen films in a year, often without a real script and where they often improvised on the set. Also are the 13 films directed by Lucio Fulci, who was the architect of the reversal of their typical roles by making Ciccio the serious one, the sidekick, and Franco the comic one.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: They also worked with important directors such as Pier Paolo Pasolini and the Taviani brothers. Considered at the time as protagonists of B movie, they were subsequently reevaluated by critics for their comedy and creative abilities, becoming the subject of study. The huge success with the public is evidenced by the box office earnings, which in the 1960s, represented 10% of the annual earnings in Italy.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The auteur cinema of the 1960s continues its path by analyzing distinct themes and problems. A new authorial vision is emancipated from the surreal and existential veins of Fellini and Antonioni which sees cinema as an ideal means of denouncing corruption and malfeasance, both in the political system and in the industrial world. Thus was born the structure of the investigative film which, starting from the neorealist analysis of the facts, adding to them a concise critical judgment, with the manifest intent of shaking the consciences of public opinion. This typology deliberately touches upon burning issues, often targeting the established power, with the intent of reconstructing a historical truth that is often hidden or denied.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The precursor of this way of understanding the director's profession was Francesco Rosi. In 1962 he inaugurated the investigation film project retracing, through a series of long flashbacks, the life of the homonym Sicilian criminal in the film "Salvatore Giuliano". The following year he directed Rod Steiger in "Hands over the City" (1963), in which he courageously denounced the collusion existing between the various organs of the State and the building exploitation in Naples. The film was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: One of Francesco Rosi's most famous films of denunciation is "The Mattei Affair" (1972), a rigorous documentary into the mysterious disappearance of Enrico Mattei, manager of Eni, a large Italian state group. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and became (together with the tight "Illustrious Corpses" (1976)) a true model for similar denunciation films produced both in Italy and abroad. Famous films of denunciation by Elio Petri are "The Working Class Goes to Heaven" (1971), a corrosive denunciation of life in the factory (winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes) and "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion" (1970). The latter (accompanied by the incisive soundtrack by Ennio Morricone) is a dry psychoanalytic thriller centered on the aberrations of power, analyzed in a pathological key. The film obtained a wide consensus, winning the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film the following year.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Arguments related to civilian cinema can be found in the work of Damiano Damiani, who with "The Day of the Owl" (1968) enjoyed considerable success. Other feature films include, "Confessions of a Police Captain" (1971), "The Case Is Closed, Forget It" (1971), "How to Kill a Judge" (1974) and "I Am Afraid" (1977). Also Pasquale Squitieri for the film "Il prefetto di ferro" (1977) and Giuliano Montaldo, who after some experiences as an actor, staged some historical and political films such as "The Fifth Day of Peace" (1970), "Sacco & Vanzetti" (1971) and "Giordano Bruno" (1973). Also Nanni Loy for the film "In Prison Awaiting Trial" (1971) starring Alberto Sordi.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In the 1970s the work done by the director Lina Wertmüller was influential, who together with the well-established actors Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato, gave life to successful films such as "The Seduction of Mimi" (1972), "Love and Anarchy" (1973) and "Swept Away" (1974). Two years later, with "Seven Beauties" (1976), she obtained four nominations for the Academy Awards, making her the first woman ever to receive a nomination for best director.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The last protagonist of the great season of the comedy is the director Ettore Scola. Throughout the 1950s, he played the role of screenwriter, and then makes his directorial debut in 1964 with the film "Let's Talk About Women". In 1974, he directed his best known film, "We All Loved Each Other So Much", which traces 30 years of Italian history through the stories of three friends: the lawyer Gianni Perego (Vittorio Gassman), the porter Antonio (Nino Manfredi) and the intellectual Nicola (Stefano Satta Flores). Other films include, "Down and Dirty" (1976) starring Nino Manfredi, and "A Special Day" (1977) starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Commedia sexy all'italiana is characterized typically by both abundant female nudity and comedy, and by the minimal weight given to social criticism that was the basic ingredient of the main commedia all'italiana genre. Stories are often set in affluent environments such as wealthy households. It is closely connected to the sexual revolution, and it was something extremely new and innovative for that period. For the first time, films with female nudity could be watched at the cinema. Pornography and scenes of explicit sex were still forbidden in Italian cinemas, but partial nudity was somewhat tolerated. The genre has been described as a cross between bawdy comedy and humorous erotic film with ample slapstick elements which follows more or less clichéd storylines.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: During this time, commedia sexy all'italiana films, described by the film critics of the time as not artistic or "trash films", were very popular in Italy. Today they are widely re-evaluated and have become real cult movies. They also allowed the producers of Italian cinema to have enough revenue to produce successful artistic films. These comedy films were of little artistic value and reached their popularity by confronting Italian social taboos, most notably in the sexual sphere. Actors such as Lando Buzzanca, Lino Banfi, Renzo Montagnani, Alvaro Vitali, Gloria Guida, Barbara Bouchet and Edwige Fenech owe much of their popularity to these films.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The films starring Ugo Fantozzi, a character invented by Paolo Villaggio for his television sketches and newspaper short stories, also fell within the comic satirical comedy genre. Although Villaggio's movies tend to bridge comedy with a more elevated social satire, this character had a great impact on Italian society, to such a degree that the adjective "fantozziano" entered the lexicon. Ugo Fantozzi represents the archetype of the average Italian of the 1970s, middle-class with a simple lifestyle with the anxieties common to an entire class of workers, being re-evaluated by critics.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Of the many films telling of Fantozzi's misadventures, the most notable and famous were "Fantozzi" (1975) and "Il secondo tragico Fantozzi" (1976), both directed by Luciano Salce, but many others were produced. The other films were "Fantozzi contro tutti" (1980) directed by Neri Parenti, "Fantozzi subisce ancora" (1983) by Neri Parenti, "Superfantozzi" (1986) by Neri Parenti, "Fantozzi va in pensione" (1988) by Neri Parenti, "Fantozzi alla riscossa" (1990) by Neri Parenti, "Fantozzi in paradiso" (1993) by Neri Parenti, "Fantozzi - Il ritorno" (1996) by Neri Parenti and "Fantozzi 2000 - La clonazione" (1999) by Domenico Saverni.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The sceneggiata (pl. sceneggiate) or sceneggiata napoletana is a form of musical drama typical of Naples. Beginning as a form of musical theatre after World War I, it was also adapted for cinema; sceneggiata films became especially popular in the 1970s, and contributed to the genre becoming more widely known outside Naples. The most famous actors who played dramas were Mario Merola, Mario Trevi, and Nino D'Angelo.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The sceneggiata can be roughly described as a "musical soap opera", where action and dialogue are interspersed with Neapolitan songs. Plots revolve around melodramatic themes drawing from the Neapolitan culture and tradition, including passion, jealousy, betrayal, personal deceit and treachery, honor, vengeance, and life in the world of petty crime. Songs and dialogue were originally in Neapolitan dialect, although, especially in filmic production, Italian has sometimes been preferred, to reach a larger audience.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "Sgarro alla camorra" (i.e. "Offence to the Camorra", 1973), written and directed by Ettore Maria Fizzarotti and starring Mario Merola at his film debut, is regarded as the first sceneggiata film and as a prototype for the genre. It was shot in Cetara, Province of Salerno. Outside Italy, sceneggiata is mostly known in areas populated by Italian immigrants. Besides Naples, the second homeland of sceneggiata is probably Little Italy in New York City.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The 1980s was a period of decline for Italian filmmaking. In 1985, only 80 films were produced (the least since the postwar period) and the total number of audience decreased from 525 million in 1970, to 123 million. It is a physiological process that invests, in the same period as other countries, with a great cinematographic tradition such as Japan, United Kingdom and France. The era of producers ended; Carlo Ponti and Dino De Laurentiis work abroad, Goffredo Lombardo and Franco Cristaldi were no longer key figures. The crisis affects the Italian genre cinema above all, which, by virtue of the success of commercial television, is deprived of the vast majority of its audience. As a result, movie theaters began showing mainly Hollywood films, which steadily took over, while many other movie theaters closed.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Among the major artistic films of this era were "La città delle donne", "E la nave va", "Ginger and Fred" by Fellini, "L'albero degli zoccoli" by Ermanno Olmi (winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival), "La notte di San Lorenzo" by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Antonioni's "Identificazione di una donna", and "Bianca" and "La messa è finita" by Nanni Moretti. Although not entirely Italian, Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor", winner of 9 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, and "Once Upon a Time in America" of Sergio Leone came out of this period also.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "Non ci resta che piangere", directed by and starring both Roberto Benigni and Massimo Troisi, is a cult movie in Italy.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Carlo Verdone, actor, screenwriter and film director, is best known for his comedic roles in Italian classics, which he also wrote and directed. His career was jumpstarted by his first three successes, "Un sacco bello" (1980), "Bianco, rosso e Verdone" (1981) and "Borotalco" (1982). Since the 1990s, he has been introducing more serious subjects in his work, linked to the excesses of society and the individual's hardships in confronting it; some examples are "Maledetto il giorno che t'ho incontrata" (1992), "Il mio miglior nemico" (2006) and "Io, loro e Lara" (2010).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Francesco Nuti began his professional career as an actor in the late 1970s, when he formed the cabaret group "Giancattivi" together with Alessandro Benvenuti and Athina Cenci. The group took part in the TV shows "Black Out" and "Non Stop" for RAI TV, and shot their first feature film, "West of Paperino" (1981), written and directed by Benvenuti. The following year Nuti abandoned the trio and began a solo career with three movies directed by Maurizio Ponzi: "What a Ghostly Silence There Is Tonight" (1982), "The Pool Hustlers" (1982) and "Son contento" (1983). Starting in 1985, he began to direct his movies, scoring an immediate success with the films "Casablanca, Casablanca " and " All the Fault of Paradise" (1985), "Stregati" (1987), "Caruso Pascoski, Son of a Pole" (1988), "Willy Signori e vengo da lontano" (1990) and "Women in Skirts" (1991). The 1990s were however a period of decline for the Tuscan director, with poorly successful movies such as "OcchioPinocchio" (1994), "Mr. Fifteen Balls" (1998), "Io amo Andrea" (2000) and "Caruso, Zero for Conduct" (2001).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The cinepanettoni (singular: "cinepanettone") are a series of farcical comedy films, one or two of which are scheduled for release annually in Italy during the Christmas period. The films were originally produced by Aurelio De Laurentiis' Filmauro studio. These films are usually focused on the holidays of stereotypical Italians: bungling, wealthy and presumptuous members of the middle class who visit famous, glamorous or exotic places.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The economic crisis that emerged in the 1980s began to ease over the next decade. Nonetheless, the 1992–93 and 1993–94 seasons marked an all-time low in the number of films made, in the national market share (15 percent), in the total number of viewers (under 90 million per year) and in the number of cinemas. The effect of this industrial contraction sanctions the total disappearance of Italian genre cinema in the middle of the decade, as it was no longer suitable to compete with the contemporary big Hollywood blockbusters (mainly due to the enormous budget differences available), with its directors and actors who therefore almost entirely switch to television film.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: A new generation of directors has helped return Italian cinema to a healthy level since the end of the 1980s. Probably the most noted film of the period is "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso", for which Giuseppe Tornatore won a 1989 Oscar (awarded in 1990) for Best Foreign Language Film. This award was followed when Gabriele Salvatores's "Mediterraneo" won the same prize for 1991.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "" (1994), directed by the British Michael Radford and starring Massimo Troisi, received five nominations at the Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Troisi, and won for Best Original Score. Another exploit was in 1998 when Roberto Benigni won three Oscars for his movie "Life Is Beautiful" ("La vita è bella)" (Best Actor for Benigni himself, Best Foreign Film, Best Music). The film was also nominated for Best Picture.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Leonardo Pieraccioni made his directorial debut with "The Graduates" (1995). In 1996 he directed his breakthrough film "The Cyclone", which grossed Lire 75 billion at the box office.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: With the new millennium, the Italian film industry regained stability and critical recognition. In 1995, 93 films were produced, while in 2005, 274 films were made. In 2006, the national market share reached 31 percent. In 2001, Nanni Moretti's film "The Son's Room" ("La stanza del figlio") received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Other noteworthy recent Italian films include: "Jona che visse nella balena" directed by Roberto Faenza, "Il grande cocomero" by Francesca Archibugi, "The Profession of Arms" ("Il mestiere delle armi") by Olmi, "L'ora di religione" by Marco Bellocchio, "Il ladro di bambini", "Lamerica", "The Keys to the House" ("Le chiavi di casa") by Gianni Amelio, "I'm Not Scared" ("Io non-ho paura") by Gabriele Salvatores, "Le Fate Ignoranti", "Facing Windows" ("La finestra di fronte") by Ferzan Özpetek, "Good Morning, Night" ("Buongiorno, notte") by Marco Bellocchio, "The Best of Youth" ("La meglio gioventù") by Marco Tullio Giordana, "The Beast in the Heart" ("La bestia nel cuore") by Cristina Comencini.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In 2008 Paolo Sorrentino's "Il Divo", a biographical film based on the life of Giulio Andreotti, won the Jury prize and "Gomorra", a crime drama film, directed by Matteo Garrone won the Gran Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Paolo Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty" ("La Grande Bellezza") won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The two highest-grossing Italian films in Italy have both been directed by Gennaro Nunziante and starred Checco Zalone: "Sole a catinelle" (2013) with €51.8 million, and "Quo Vado?" (2016) with €65.3 million.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "They Call Me Jeeg", a 2016 critically acclaimed superhero film directed by Gabriele Mainetti and starring Claudio Santamaria, won many awards, such as eight David di Donatello, two Nastro d'Argento, and a Globo d'oro.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Gianfranco Rosi's documentary film "Fire at Sea" (2016) won the Golden Bear at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. "They Call Me Jeeg" and "Fire at Sea" were also selected as the Italian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but they were not nominated.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Other successful 2010s Italian films include: "Vincere" and "The Traitor" by Marco Bellocchio, "The First Beautiful Thing" ("La prima cosa bella"), "Human Capital" ("Il capitale umano") and "Like Crazy" ("La pazza gioia") by Paolo Virzì, "We Have a Pope" ("Habemus Papam") and "Mia Madre" by Nanni Moretti, "Caesar Must Die" ("Cesare deve morire") by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, "Don't Be Bad" ("Non essere cattivo") by Claudio Caligari, "Romanzo Criminale" by Michele Placido (that spawned a TV series, "Romanzo criminale - La serie"), "Youth" ("La giovinezza") by Paolo Sorrentino, "Suburra" by Stefano Sollima, "Perfect Strangers" ("Perfetti sconosciuti") by Paolo Genovese, "Mediterranea" and "A Ciambra" by Jonas Carpignano, "Italian Race" ("Veloce come il vento") and "" ("Il primo re") by Matteo Rovere, and "Tale of Tales" ("Il racconto dei racconti"), "Dogman" and "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "Call Me by Your Name" (2017), the final installment in Luca Guadagnino's thematic "Desire" trilogy, following "I Am Love" (2009) and "A Bigger Splash" (2015), received widespread acclaim and numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the nomination for Best Picture in 2018.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "Perfect Strangers" by Paolo Genovese was included in the "Guinness World Records" as it became the most remade film in cinema history, with a total of 18 versions of the film.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Successful 2020s Italian films include: "The Life Ahead" by Edoardo Ponti, "Hidden Away" by Giorgio Diritti, "Bad Tales" by Damiano and Fabio D'Innocenzo, "The Predators" by Pietro Castellitto, "Padrenostro" by Claudio Noce, "Notturno" by Gianfranco Rosi, "The King of Laughter" by Mario Martone, "A Chiara" by Jonas Carpignano, "Freaks Out" by Gabriele Mainetti, "The Hand of God" by Paolo Sorrentino, "Nostalgia" by Mario Martone, "Dry" by Paolo Giordano, "The Hanging Sun" by Francesco Carrozzini and "" by Pupi Avati.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Cineteca Nazionale is a film archive located in Rome. Founded in 1949, here are 80,000 films on file, 600,000 photographs, 50,000 posters and the collection of the Italian Association for the History of Cinema Research (AIRSC). It arose from the archival heritage of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, which in 1943, had been removed by the Nazi occupiers, losing unique materials. Cineteca Italiana is a private film archive located in Milan. Established in 1947, and as a foundation in 1996, the Cineteca Italiana houses over 20,000 films and more than 100,000 photographs from the history of Italian and international cinema. Cineteca di Bologna is a film archive in Bologna. It was founded in 1962.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The National Museum of Cinema (Italian: "Museo Nazionale del Cinema") located in Turin is a motion picture museum inside the Mole Antonelliana tower. It is operated by the "Maria Adriana Prolo Foundation", and the core of its collection is the result of the work of the historian and collector Maria Adriana Prolo. It was housed in the "Palazzo Chiablese". In 2008, with 532,196 visitors, it ranked 13th among the most visited Italian museums. The museum houses pre-cinematographic optical devices such as magic lanterns, earlier and current film technologies, stage items from early Italian movies and other memorabilia. Along the exhibition path of about 35,000 square feet (3,200 m) on five levels, it is possible to visit some areas devoted to the different kinds of film crew, and in the main hall, fitted in the temple hall of the Mole (which was a building originally intended as a synagogue), a series of chapels representing several film genres.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The Museum of Precinema (Italian: "Museo del Precinema") is a museum in the Palazzo Angeli, Prato della Valle, Padua, related to the history of precinema, or precursors of film. It was created in 1998 to display the Minici Zotti Collection, in collaboration with the Comune of Padova. It also produces interactive touring exhibitions and makes valuable loans to other prestigious exhibitions such as "Lanterne magique et film peint" at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris and the National Museum of Cinema in Turin.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The Cinema Museum of Rome is located in Cinecittà. The collections consist of movie posters and playbills, cine cameras, projectors, magic lanterns, stage costumes and the patent of Filoteo Alberini's "kinetograph". The Milan Cinema Museum, managed by the Cineteca Italiana, is divided into three sections, the precinema, animation cinema and "Milan as a film set", as well as multimedia and interactive stations.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The Catania Cinema Museum exhibits documents concerning cinema, its techniques and its history, with particular attention to the link between cinema and Sicily. The Cinema Museum of Syracuse collects more than 10,000 exhibits on display in 12 rooms.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Italy is the most awarded country at the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, with 14 awards won, 3 Special Awards and 31 nominations. Winners with the year of the ceremony:


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In 1961, Sophia Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as a woman who is raped in World War II, along with her adolescent daughter, in Vittorio De Sica's "Two Women". She was the first actress to win an Academy Award for a performance in any foreign language, and the second Italian leading lady Oscar-winner, after Anna Magnani for "The Rose Tattoo". In 1998, Roberto Benigni was the first Italian actor to win for the Best Actor for "Life Is Beautiful".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Italian-born filmmaker Frank Capra won three times at the Academy Award for Best Director, for "It Happened One Night", "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" and "You Can't Take It with You". Bernardo Bertolucci won the award for "The Last Emperor", and also Best Adapted Screenplay for the same movie.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Ennio De Concini, Alfredo Giannetti and Pietro Germi won the award for Best Original Screenplay for "Divorce Italian Style". The Academy Award for Best Film Editing was won by Gabriella Cristiani for "The Last Emperor" and by Pietro Scalia for "JFK" and "Black Hawk Down".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The award for Best Original Score was won by Nino Rota for "The Godfather Part II"; Giorgio Moroder for "Midnight Express"; Nicola Piovani for "Life is Beautiful"; Dario Marianelli for "Atonement"; and Ennio Morricone for "The Hateful Eight". Giorgio Moroder also won the award for Best Original Song for "Flashdance" and "Top Gun".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The Italian winners at the Academy Award for Best Production Design are Dario Simoni for "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago"; Elio Altramura and Gianni Quaranta for "A Room with a View"; Bruno Cesari, Osvaldo Desideri and Ferdinando Scarfiotti for "The Last Emperor"; Luciana Arrighi for "Howards End"; and Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo for "The Aviator", "" and "Hugo".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The winners at the Academy Award for Best Cinematography are: Tony Gaudio for "Anthony Adverse"; Pasqualino De Santis for "Romeo and Juliet"; Vittorio Storaro for "Apocalypse Now", "Reds" and "The Last Emperor"; and Mauro Fiore for "Avatar".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The winners at the Academy Award for Best Costume Design are Piero Gherardi for "La dolce vita" and "8½"; Vittorio Nino Novarese for "Cleopatra" and "Cromwell"; Danilo Donati for "The Taming of the Shrew", "Romeo and Juliet", and "Fellini's Casanova"; Franca Squarciapino for "Cyrano de Bergerac"; Gabriella Pescucci for "The Age of Innocence"; and Milena Canonero for "Barry Lyndon", "Chariots of Fire", "Marie Antoinette" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi won three Oscars: one Special Achievement Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for "King Kong" and two Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects for "Alien" (1979) and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial". The Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling was won by Manlio Rocchetti for "Driving Miss Daisy", and Alessandro Bertolazzi and Giorgio Gregorini for "Suicide Squad".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Sophia Loren, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Dino De Laurentiis, Ennio Morricone, and Piero Tosi also received the Academy Honorary Award.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: The Virginia Cavaliers football team represents the University of Virginia in the sport of American football. Established in 1888, Virginia plays its home games at Scott Stadium, capacity 61,500, featured directly on its campus near the Academical Village. UVA played an outsized role in the shaping of the modern game's ethics and eligibility rules, as well as its safety rules after a Georgia fullback died fighting the tide of a lopsided Virginia victory in 1897.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Quickly asserting itself as the South's first great program with 28 straight winning seasons from its first in 1888, Virginia football claimed 12 southern championships and was the first Southern program to defeat perennial power (26-time national champions) Yale, in a 10–0 shocker at the Yale Bowl in 1915. During those early days, Virginia established long-lasting rivalries that still continue on: particularly the South's Oldest Rivalry with North Carolina and a heated rivalry with Virginia Tech. Virginia has also played (now FCS) William & Mary annually or biennially for extended stretches since 1908.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Virginia lost its mantle as the region's mark of success between World War I and World War II, but soon thereafter Art Guepe had Virginia winning big again. To avoid the trappings of "big-time football", university president Colgate Darden reduced scholarship and recruiting support, argued against joining the ACC, and declined an invite for Virginia to play unbeaten Georgia Tech in the 1952 Orange Bowl. The Board of Visitors voted to join the ACC anyway, but Guepe left for Vanderbilt and under Dick Voris Virginia embarked on a 28-game losing streak from 1958 to 1960, as Darden retired. Voris left with a record of 1–29, his lone victory a 15–12 nailbiter against Duke. Still limited by a relative lack of funding in those times, his successors managed moderately better records through the 1960s and 1970s.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: George Welsh led a dramatic turnaround effort from 1982, and took Virginia to its first dozen bowl games and even its first AP No. 1 ranking throughout October 1990. He was the first ACC coach to reach 100 wins, and retired in 2000 with the most ACC wins (his 85 ranking second to Bobby Bowden as of 2021) of any coach in history. In November 1995, similar to winning the first Southern victory against Yale 80 years prior, Virginia was the first ACC team to defeat Bowden's Florida State teams after they started 29–0 in the conference. The nationally televised event led FSU's President to create the Jefferson-Eppes Trophy, which Virginia again (as of 2021) holds in Charlottesville after winning the latest matchup in 2019.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Virginia remains the only ACC Coastal division program to have ever been ranked AP No. 1 in the nation as an ACC member. The Cavaliers have been participants in one New Year's Six bowl to date, the 2019 Orange Bowl; Virginia's 21 bowl games have also included four Peach Bowls, the Sugar Bowl, and Citrus Bowl, among others. Virginia has thus far produced 11 Consensus All-Americans.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: The story of football at UVA actually begins in the fall of 1886, when two graduate students at the University, former Yale student Charles Willcox who was attending medical school at UVA, and former Princeton student, Richard Reid Rogers who matriculated to the law school, introduced the sport at Mr. Jefferson's University. After seeing the success of Princeton and Yale during their undergraduate careers, these two men brought a wealth of knowledge about this burgeoning sport to an area of the country that had no college football teams: the South. Students at UVA were playing pickup games of the kicking-style of football as early as 1870, and some accounts even claim that some industrious ones organized a game against Washington and Lee College in 1871, just two years after Rutgers and Princeton's historic first game in 1869. But no record has been found of the score of this contest. There is record of a game between Washington & Lee and VMI in 1873, the first such game in the south. In 1874, University students were introduced to the sport of rugby when they played to a scoreless tie against a team of Englishmen from Albemarle County. Eight years later, in November 1883, a football club was reorganized, a constitution drawn up, and officers elected. 75 men competed against one another, but not against another collegiate club. The University Magazine describes how "pluck is cultivated by throttling one's competitor and violently throwing him to the ground." Finally, in the fall of 1887, Willcox and Reid, after garnering interest in their fellow students throughout the year, helped Virginia put its first regularly organized team in the field. But in these early days they had had no one to play. Fortunately, Pantops Academy, a boys' school founded just up the road from the UVA Grounds, agreed to a game on November 13, 1887. After playing to a scoreless tie, a rematch was scheduled for March 1888. The historic first touchdown was scored by quarterback Herbert Barry and the University won 26–0. The following season, on December 8, 1888, UVA would play their first intercollegiate game, a 26–0 loss to Johns Hopkins. The loss did not dampen their enthusiasm for the sport. Virginia returned the favor with a 58–0 drubbing of Hopkins the following season when they went 4–2, with a 180–4 margin in its victories and two close losses to an eight-win Lehigh team and Navy. The 1889, 1890, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, and 1897 teams all claim Southern championships. The 116–0 drubbing by Princeton in 1890 signaled football's arrival in the south. The South's Oldest Rivalry started in 1892, when Virginia split games with North Carolina. The 1897 team had a scoreless tie with Vanderbilt in a game billed as the championship of the South. Serving as early as 1892, the school's first athletic director was William Lambeth, a medical professor at the university, and one of the participants in the major rules committees that were enacted to make football a safer sport. The trend was not welcome in all corners, however, according to University historian Philip Alexander Bruce, who wrote disparagingly of the arrival of "professional athletes in disguise" from all over the country. School President Edwin Alderman, though a tireless proponent of college football, was significantly alarmed to appoint an investigating committee in 1904, and a strict athletic code was written in 1906.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Between 1900 and 1915 Virginia saw coaches change 10 times and achieve 10 winning seasons with help from the likes of tackle John Loyd, fullback Bradley Walker, quarterback Robert Kent Gooch and the South's first consensus All-American in halfback Eugene N. "Buck" Mayer. The 1900, 1901, 1902, 1908, 1914, and 1915 teams claim Southern championships. In 1900 the team gave the Sewanee Tigers its first loss since 1897. The team's captain was tackle John Loyd. Virginia lost to Pop Warner's Carlisle Indians. Bradley Walker, later a Nashville attorney and prominent referee, once grabbed Hawley Pierce, Carlisle's biggest player, and carried him ten yards with him dangling over his shoulder. Work began in 1901 on Lambeth Field, propelling sports development at UVA. Along with Walker, "one of the all-time greats in Southern athletic history," the 1901 team featured several prominent players, including tackle Christie Benet, later a United States senator for South Carolina, future physicians guard Buck Harris and halfback Robert M. Coleman, and quarterback Ed Tutwiler, a transfer from Alabama and the son of industrialist and New Market cadet Edward Magruder Tutwiler. The 1901 team defeated Gallaudet, but lost to Georgetown, and so both Gallaudet and Virginia claim titles. The 1902 team beat Carlisle. In 1905, Virginia lost to VPI for the first time, in Hunter Carpenter's senior year. The 1908 team suffered a single scoreless tie to Sewanee. Freshman Archer Christian was trampled to death in the Georgetown game.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: 1912 featured Virginia in the inaugural South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SAIAA) season. Season tickets were $7.50 for students and $9.50 for alumni when 8,000-seat Lambeth Stadium opened in 1913, with a price tag of $35,000. The season began with three home shutout victories for Virginia, followed later in the season by a home game with Vanderbilt that was billed as "The Football Classic of the South". Trainloads of alumni rolled into Charlottesville to watch Virginia crush the Commodores, 34–0, at Lambeth's dedication.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: For years hence, it was traditional to designate "a greatest home game" each season. In 1914, it was Georgia—a "Rally 'Round the Rotunda" won by UVA, 28–0, in a drizzle, as Robert Kent Gooch "general-led his men with rare ability", the Alumni News gushed. Betting was heavy on Yale for a 1915 game that ranked as the biggest all-time win at that stage of Virginia's history. No Southern team had ever defeated the Ivy League power until Virginia—led by quarterback Norborne Berkeley and Buck Mayer—won 10–0 in New Haven. Headlines in the Charlottesville Daily Progress read, "Yale Bowl a Soup Tureen—Virginia Eleven Serves Dish of Bulldog Stew!" The 1915 Virginia team was also the only team to beat the "point-a-minute" Commodores. The season's only loss was 9–0 on the road at Harvard. Harvard's only loss was to national champion Cornell. Halfback Eugene N. "Buck" Mayer was the South's first consensus All-American. The University's first-ever losing football season occurred the next year, including a 61–3 payback at Yale. "Played them too early in the season", moaned a 1916 Alumni News. Questions about the role of athletics were cast aside in 1917, dwarfed by a larger battlefront now known as World War I. Athletics were curtailed in 1917 and 1918 "in an effort to adapt this University to the stern necessities of a people at war", according to the Corks & Curls.The war ended, enrollment began to rebuild, and football practice resumed in 1919 with only two lettermen. "All Trains Lead to Charlottesville!" proclaimed posters promoting the "Great Post War Gathering of Virginia Alumni" for the November 15, 1919, home game with Vanderbilt. UVA lost, 10–6, and dropped the traditional Thanksgiving Day game with North Carolina to finish the "start-up" season at 2–5–2.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: In December 1919, Dr. Rice Warren was hired as coach in 1920. Warren led the 1920 squad to a 5–2–2 record. UVA also joined the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1920, but left with many SIAA teams to form the Southern Conference in 1921. Rice Warren's tenure ended before the 1922 season, and new coach Thomas Campbell guided the team to a 4–4–1 record—not so mediocre considering the '21 team had managed only three points in its final four games. Virginia was a charter member of the Southern Conference in 1921, when it and 13 other schools split from the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association. University teams became the Virginia Cavaliers around 1923, and the leader of the first "official Cavs" was Earle "Greasy" Neale. Although his 1923 record was 3–5–1, his teams enjoyed winning records from 1924–27 before falling to 2–6–1 in 1928. Student indifference ran high, participation ran low, and Neale resigned after the 1928 season. Earl Abell took the football reins for two years in the midst of another athletic department reshuffle. The position of athletic director was created, and James G. Driver — a three-year letterman at UVA — was named Athletic Director. Lambeth Field was outgrown by the spring of 1930, as varsity and first-year teams in football, baseball, track, and lacrosse attempted to practice there. UVA historian Virginius Dabney related that spring football workouts were stopped due to the javelins and discus throwers. The University began negotiating to obtain land for a new sports site, and plans were finalized for Scott Stadium to open in October 1931. Land for practice fields between Ivy Road and the C&O Railroad tracks also was acquired. Support for UVA football had become spasmodic—even fraternity brothers were betting openly against the Cavaliers—around 1930, but in 1931, a dynamic new coach named Fred Dawson buoyed spirits. Losing seasons and a lack of athletic scholarships took a toll on Dawson's enthusiasm, however, and he quit after 1933 and was succeeded by Gus Tebell.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Just as frustrated at the dearth of notable wins was university president Edwin Anderson Alderman, who impaneled a committee to study the situation. In 1935 the Southern Conference implemented the Graham Plan, named after the Frank Porter Graham, head of the University of North Carolina system (which included University of North Carolina Tar Heels football and N.C. State Wolf Pack football). The Graham Plan committed the Southern Conference to eliminating any form of subsidization for student athletes that was not available to regular students. The Cavaliers opted to leave the Southern Conference at the end of the 1936 football season, the year the Graham Plan went into effect. Tebell bowed out after three losing seasons, and was succeeded in 1937 by Frank Murray as the Cavaliers began its status as independent (from conference affiliation). Although the Cavaliers went 2–7 during Murray's first year, the team was undefeated against state teams in 1938, posting a 4–4–1 record, creating near hysteria in the student body. The 1940s were a time of mixed success for the Cavaliers—largely thanks to the large numbers of students who served in the armed forces—but it was also known as the era of "Bullet Bill."


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: William McGarvey Dudley, a 168-pounder from Bluefield, Virginia, is often called the best ever to wear a Virginia uniform. Dudley, who wore jersey number 35, ran, passed, kicked, blocked, tackled, and intercepted his way to All America honors. Under Murray, the 1940 team—running out of a T-formation—went 4–5, but improved to 8–1 in 1941, the only loss a 21–19 upset at Yale. In his final game as a Cavalier, Dudley scored 22 points at North Carolina in a Thanksgiving classic broadcast nationally. After a 28–7 UVA win, his teammates carried him off the field. Dudley finished fifth in the 1941 Heisman Trophy balloting. Murray's 1942 squad dropped to 2–6–1, having lost 29 players to graduation and "scholarshipping for Uncle Sam." Until the war ended in 1945, UVA football functioned with makeshift teams—guest stars from other schools enrolled in the University's military units and were thus eligible to play. In spite of a 7–2 season, Frank Murray left, succeeded in 1946 by Art Guepe, who coached seven years with a winning record. In 1947, Virginia defeated Harvard, 47–0, with a team that featured John Papit, George Neff, and Bob "Rock" Weir. The game was significant because UVA was facing its first-ever black player—Harvard's Chester Pierce. The gridiron success of the late 1940s continued into the early 1950s, as Guepe teams—with Papit, Joe Palumbo, and Tom Scott winning All-America honors—lost only five games from 1950 through 1952. The Guepe years ended after the 1952 season, when the coach was wooed away by Vanderbilt in the wake of University President Colgate Darden's refusal to allow Virginia to participate in any postseason football play. Virginia had just escaped being banned permanently from the NCAA for granting athletic scholarships to student athletes, which was illegal at that time. The NCAA's "Sanity Rules" mandated that college athletes were required to work for their tuition, though this rule was often openly flouted (for instance, prior to the 1950 Rose Bowl, it was revealed that at least 16 Ohio State Buckeye football players had cushy jobs with the state of Ohio, including a running back on the payroll of the state's transportation department as a tire inspector). President Darden made a principled argument against the statute, noting the example of teams such as Ohio State, and stated unequivocally that his school had no intention of following the Code as it enabled the powerhouse schools of the Big Ten and SEC to ignore academics and essentially pay to retain football talent. While UVA (along with traditional UVA rivals Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Maryland, and Boston College) escaped being banned from NCAA play, President Darden was concerned about the effect of "big time football" on the academical status of the University. After the 1951 football season, in which UVA only lost one game, the Virginia Cavaliers found themselves invited to the Orange Bowl, which President Darden promptly declined, setting a precedent not broken for thirty years. Also in 1951, professor Robert Gooch wrote the "Gooch Report", which requested that UVA abolish its football program and discontinue giving athletic scholarships. While President Darden was opposed to entirely abolishing the football program or athletic scholarships, he did diminish the number of athletic scholarships given by 80%. This resulted in the departure of Coach Guepe and a series of losing seasons by the football team.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Heated arguments ensued about whether Virginia should join the Atlantic Coast Conference. Athletic Director and former football coach Gus Tebell and President Darden differed sharply—Tebell in favor, Darden worried about the league's academic standards and the belief that Virginia should only align with other Virginia schools—and the Board of Visitors backed Tebell. Virginia was admitted into the ACC on December 4, 1953. The first 9 years in the ACC brought 9 losing seasons and a 28-game losing streak (the equal second worst in NCAA FBS history), lasting from the third game of 1958 until the opening game of 1961. The streak ended in front of 18,000 fans in Scott Stadium on opening day of the 1961 season. Virginia beat William & Mary 21–6. In 1970, George Blackburn's last year, UVA's football program was integrated for the first time, with the signing of Harrison Davis, Stanley Land, Kent Merritt, and John Rainey. Blackburn was replaced by Don Lawrence, who suffered through three consecutive losing seasons between 1971 and 1973. Lawrence was succeeded by Ulmo Shannon "Sonny" Randle, UVa '59. AstroTurf was laid at Scott Stadium in May 1974 and the team still had a losing season, going 4–7.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Head Coach George Welsh was hired for the start of the 1982 season, leaving the same position at the U.S. Naval Academy. He spent years as an assistant coach under Joe Paterno at Penn State and brought a winning tradition in his 19 years at the helm. After going 2–9 and 6–5 in his first two campaigns, Welsh guided the Cavaliers to an 8–2–2 season in 1984 with a 27–24 Peach Bowl win over Purdue representing UVA's first-ever bowl appearance and win.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: In 1985 and 1986, the Cavaliers did not go to bowl games. In 1987, they started 3–4 but would win the last five games to finish 8–4 with an All-American Bowl win over BYU. In 1988, the Cavaliers started 2–4 but would win their last five games to finish 7–4 with no bowl game. The 1989 season was the greatest season in school history, with a record of 10–3 overall, and the winning of the program's first ACC co-championship. Virginia would go on to lose the Florida Citrus Bowl, the first New Year's Day bowl in school history. Virginia, wearing new uniforms for the first time in 10 years and only the second time in head coach George Welsh's tenure, enjoyed one of the finest seasons in their history in 1994.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Most noticeably, the team switched from white helmets with orange and blue stripes down the middle to dark blue helmets with a "V" over two crossed sabres on the sides. The V-Sabre logo was designed by Coach Welsh's son Matt. The rest of the uniform changed from predominantly orange and white to predominantly blue and white. Representing a major athletic facility improvement, the artificial turf at Scott Stadium was removed and replaced with natural grass before the start of the 1995 season. Artificial turf was first installed at Scott Stadium in 1974. David A. Harrison III Field was dedicated September 2, 1995, at Virginia's home opener against William & Mary. In 1995, the Cavaliers won their second ACC title. Citing concerns about his health as a primary reason for his decision, Welsh announced his retirement in a press conference on December 11, 2000, where he said simply "I am now, and forever will be, a Wahoo." Welsh stepped down at Virginia at the age of 67 after establishing himself as the winningest coach in UVA and ACC history. He compiled a 19-year record of 134–86–3 at Virginia, including a conference-record 80 ACC wins. Welsh led the Cavaliers to 12 bowl games and 14 consecutive years of winning at least 7 games.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: With the retirement of a UVA legend, the Virginia faithful were looking for a new coach who could bring the same success to the team that George Welsh maintained throughout his tenure. After Florida State University's Offensive Coordinator Mark Richt accepted the position as head coach of the University of Georgia, initial speculation centered on former Penn State University Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky, with only Sandusky and Richt being interviewed before, on December 30, 2000, Virginia hired New York Jets head coach and former Virginia player Al Groh. His first year was a rebuilding year with the team going 5–7. Groh then led the Cavaliers to four consecutive winning seasons from 2002 to 2005, including a 3–1 record in bowl games. The 2002 squad saw the breakout season of quarterback Matt Schaub, who led the Cavaliers to a 9–5 season capped by a 48–22 blowout of No. 12West Virginia in the Continental Tire Bowl. The 2003 team faced adversity with an early season injury to Schaub, but the team rallied to finish the year 8–5, including a victory over Pittsburgh in the 2003 Continental Tire Bowl. The 2004 team reached No. 6 in national polls after a 5–0 start, the Cavaliers' highest ranking since 1990, but they lost 36–3 at No. 7 Florida State and finished 8–4 after an upset loss to Fresno State in the MPC Computers Bowl. The 2005 team finished with a 7–5 record, but included Virginia's second-ever victory over Florida State and a win over Minnesota in the Music City Bowl. The 2006 squad's record slipped to 5–7. In 2007, the team went 9–3 for the season, including a 48–0 shutout of the University of Miami in the Hurricanes' last home game in the Orange Bowl Stadium, as well as setting an NCAA record for wins by two points or fewer (five). Gaining an invitation to Jacksonville, Florida, for the Gator Bowl, they subsequently lost 28–31 to Texas Tech. For 2008, the team started with several big losses, but went on to win four games in a row before losing the last four of the season, finishing 5–7. Virginia's 2009 campaign under Groh started with a stunning 26–14 loss to William & Mary of the FCS (formerly I-AA). It was UVA's first loss to a I-AA team since losing to William & Mary 41–37 in 1986. The 2009 team ended 3–9 and Groh was fired following the last game of the season, a loss against rival Virginia Tech.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Mike London was named head coach of the Cavaliers on December 7, 2009. London, who was previously head coach at the University of Richmond, was an assistant coach under Al Groh from 2001–04 and again from 2006–07. London became one of only 10 black head coaches at the Division I-A level. In his first season with the Cavs, the team went 4–8 overall and 1–7 in conference play. He followed that up with an 8–4 (5–3 ACC) turnaround season, following which he won the ACC Coach of the Year award, after preseason projections had Virginia finishing fifth in the ACC Coastal Division. The 2011 team registered a win at Florida State for the first time in school history and became the first team in FBS history to win games at Miami and Florida State in the same season. The team earned a bid to the 2011 Chick-fil-A Bowl, where they lost to Auburn 43–24. In 2012, the team suffered a disappointing 4–8 season that resulted in the dismissal of four assistant coaches. Prior to the start of the 2013 season, both starting quarterbacks from the year before, Michael Rocco and Phillip Sims, transferred from Virginia, going to Richmond and Winston-Salem State, respectively. The Cavaliers' downward spiral continued in 2013 as the team, now led at quarterback by redshirt sophomore David Watford, finished last in the ACC with a record of 2–10, losing their last nine games of the season. The following year saw marginal improvement under quarterbacks Greyson Lambert and Matt Johns, but went 5–7, including an eleventh-straight loss to Virginia Tech. Athletic director Craig Littlepage chose prior to the end of the season to retain London for 2015, but fans continued to express dissatisfaction with the play-calling of London and his staff, and some calling for London's ouster. After a third 4–8 season in 2015, London resigned as head coach. Perhaps the most damning feature of London's tenure is that he fared 0–12 in Virginia's rivalry games against North Carolina and Virginia Tech.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall was named head coach of the Cavaliers on December 4, 2015. Mendenhall soon led Virginia to bowl games in his second and third years, including a surprising 28–0 rout of South Carolina in the 2018 Belk Bowl. These were the first consecutive bowl appearances for the program since 2002–2005. Mendenhall also lead the Cavaliers to victory over their arch-rival Hokies in 2019 to break the 15-year losing streak in a game with the most on the line for both teams in nearly a decade, an exciting "de facto" Coastal Championship Game that sent UVA to the 2019 ACC Championship Game and 2019 Orange Bowl. Mendenhall became the first coach to bring the Commonwealth Cup and Jefferson-Eppes Trophy to Charlottesville at the same time, on the heels of winning his third consecutive South's Oldest Rivalry game. His 2020 and 2021 campaigns did not fare quite as well, with records of 5–5 and 6–6, including 1–3 against Virginia's rivals North Carolina and Virginia Tech. On December 2, 2021, Mendenhall announced that he would step down as head coach following the Cavaliers' 2021 bowl game. The decision was entirely Mendenhall's choice; he was not forced out and was not leaving for another job. "247Sports" reported the Virginia opening would project as one of the "more attractive jobs" on the market, considering "strong in-state recruiting grounds" and it being situated in a "wide-open Power Five conference."


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Tony Elliott was named the head coach of the Cavaliers on December 10, 2021. Elliott previously served as the assistant head coach, offensive coordinator and tight ends coach at Clemson University. Elliott signed a six-year contract with UVA worth $25.93 million excluding incentives.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: On November 13, 2022, three members of the team were shot and killed in a shooting. The suspected gunman was a former high school running back who was a member of the Virginia team for one season in 2018, but due to a lingering injury was unable to practice with the team.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: The Cavaliers have won numerous conference championships, although the number is up for dispute. In the latter part of the 19th century, conferences were not prominent as much as independent football play was. Retroactively, a list of independent southern football champions has listed Virginia as champion of the South on an independent level 12 times from 1889 to 1908. The forming of the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association has been disputed to either have taken place in either 1908 or 1911.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Virginia has had 42 head coaches since organized football began in 1888. Tony Elliot has been the current head coach since 2022.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Virginia has been invited to the Gator, Peach, Citrus, Sugar, and Orange Bowls, among others. The Cavaliers' most recent bowl appearance was in the 2019 Orange Bowl against the Florida Gators. The program's all-time bowl record is 8–13 through the 2019 season. The team has appeared in four consecutive bowl games twice in its history, in 1994–1996 and 2002–2005. Virginia is the winningest team in Duke's Mayo Bowl history with a 3–0 record after its victories in 2002, 2003, and 2018. Virginia also holds the record for largest margin of victory in that bowl after its 28–0 shutout victory over South Carolina at Bank of America Stadium in 2018.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Virginia and Virginia Tech first met in 1895 and have played annually since 1970, with the Commonwealth Cup awarded to the victor since 1996. Virginia last won the Cup in 2019. That win ended a 15-game losing streak in the rivalry in a "de facto" Coastal Championship Game that sent UVA to the 2019 Orange Bowl, the first New Year's Six bowl for either of the two programs. Virginia Tech leads the series 60–38–5 through the 2021 season.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: The teams have played every year since 1919 and began playing in 1895, in what is by far the longest series in the ACC. The name of the rivalry stems from the fact that the two programs were regarded as the best of the South between 1895 and 1910, winning the vast majority of southern championships during that era. The game was played on Thanksgiving Day through 1950, and a sitting President of the United States (Calvin Coolidge) made the multi-hour trip to Charlottesville on Thanksgiving to view the game in 1928. North Carolina leads the series 63–59–4 per Virginia records, though UVA has held the upper hand, 24–14–1, since 1983.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: The two teams play for the Jefferson–Eppes Trophy. The trophy was created on the suggestion of former FSU President Sandy D'Alemberte, after Virginia became the first ACC program to defeat Florida State on November 2, 1995. To that point, the Seminoles had run up a perfect 29–0 record through their first 3½ years of Atlantic Coast Conference play. Florida State leads 14–4 through the 2019 season. In recent decades the games are sporadic but competitive: since 2005, Virginia is 3–2 against Florida State (as of 2019). Virginia last won the Trophy in 2019 and holds it currently.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Virginia and Maryland were ACC "permanent rivals" from 2005–2013 under the two-division system. Many athletes and students on both sides come from the Washington Metropolitan Area. Maryland leads the series 44–32–2, though UVA has held the upper hand, 15–7, since 1991.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: The University of Virginia's athletic department has issued the following statement distinguishing "retired jerseys" from "retired numbers": "Jersey retirement honors Virginia players who have significantly impacted the program. Individuals recognized in this way will have their jerseys retired, but their number will remain active."


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: Prior to the arrival of George Welsh, Clemson dominated the series against Virginia. The Tigers had not lost a single game to the Cavaliers and most games were blowouts. Former Clemson coach Frank Howard had referred to the Cavaliers as "White Meat" back in the 1960s and they hadn't lost to Virginia since. Despite Welsh's success, the Tigers' record against the Cavaliers stood at 29–0 after Clemson defeated the 1989 Virginia team that captured the ACC co-championship. Behind a high-powered offense with Shawn Moore, Herman Moore, and Terry Kirby and a strong defensive effort led by Chris Slade, the Cavaliers finally defeated Clemson, which was ranked in the top ten at the time, in the second game of the 1990 season. The win propelled the Cavaliers' rise in the polls, which culminated in a number-one ranking in late October.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: UVa managed to win its share of close games as the 1995 season unfolded, including a 33–28 upset victory over second-ranked and previously unbeaten Florida State. Playing on national television in the first-ever Thursday night game in Charlottesville, Virginia stopped the Seminoles at the goal line on the game's final play (in the early morning hours of Friday, November 3, 1995) to preserve the win. With the victory, the Cavaliers ended FSU's four-year, 29-game winning streak against ACC teams since joining the conference in 1992. Florida State became the highest-ranked team to ever fall to the Cavaliers. Virginia and Florida State were later crowned co-ACC champions after finishing the season with identical 7–1 conference records.


title: Virginia Cavaliers football

text: During a generally disappointing 1996 season, the Cavaliers upset the top ten–ranked Tar Heels at Scott Stadium. In the fourth quarter, North Carolina led Virginia 17–3 and, having advanced within the Cavaliers' five-yard line, were about to put the game away. However, Virginia cornerback Antwan Harris intercepted a Tar Heel pass in the end zone and returned it 95 yards for a touchdown. Quarterback Tim Sherman then led the Cavaliers to another ten points, capped by Rafael Garcia's late game field goal, and the defense shut down the demoralized Tar Heels for a stunning 20–17 comeback victory. The defeat cost North Carolina a bid to the Bowl Alliance; coach Mack Brown left UNC for Texas after another highly ranked Tar Heel team in 1997 also failed to receive a Bowl Alliance bid.