Bookshop

The number 596 of “White and Black” is entirely dedicated to Mario Monicelli, who was indisputably one of the great authors of our cinema.

It is a step-by-step biography that is also the reconsideration of a genius, with his lies and his truths. A volume largely based on the actor’s personal archive, full of unpublished documents and never-before-seen images.

It traces the career of one of Italy’s most beloved actors, enriched by remarkable photos from the Cineteca Nazionale’s Photographic Archive. It also features accounts by Federico Fellini, Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Ettore Scola, Marco Bellocchio and Liliana Cavani, among others.

In addition to being a great actor, Lino Capolicchio was blessed by living during a unique era in Italy: the Sixties and Seventies. This was a time in which the world witnessed an unprecedented ethical and aesthetic revolution, affecting every aspect of human life from politics to philosophy, from cinema to music, from art to theatre, from literature to architecture. Throughout those fabulous years, Lino Capolicchio was, first and foremost, an iconic figure, a role that is clearly painted in his memoir, which offers touching and flawless evidence of this, especially through his brilliant analyses of certain extraordinary encounters, such as those with Sergio Tofano, Giorgio Strehler, Anna Magnani, Vittorio De Sica, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, The Beatles, Carmelo Bene and Fabrizio De André.

Special issue exploring the new and radical transformations taking place within the globalised landscape of audiovisual content, using Netflix as a case study. Examines in particular how on-demand video streaming platforms like Netflix are changing the nature of film production and consumption.

The catalogue lists the 221 films restored, preserved and reissued between 2002 and 2016.

This book features critical articles sounding the work of Frederick Wiseman, a cinematographer who exposed the strengths and weaknesses of American society in his documentaries, expanding upon the language of the so-called “reality cinema”. New updated edition.

A talk between directing teacher Gianni Amelio and his former pupil, Francesco Munzi, which originates inside the rooms of the Experimental Centre and evolves into a reflection on the significance of directing. Over the course of a few weeks, in the summer of 2015, the two directors belonging to two different generations met in front of a recorder and then reviewed and rewrote hours of conversation, finally creating this book.

When talking about studio system in Italy, it is impossible to not mention Fortunato Misano’s Romana Film, active between 1945 and 1970. Over the course of its 25 years of activity, Romana Film maintained an independent studio system policy. Romana Film means about one hundred films, averaging at four movies per year. Up until 1959 it specialized in popular melodramatic films, often set in Naples and replete with songs and singers. Since the 1960s it specialized in adventure films, with distinctive features. Worth mentioning, among its most trusted directors, are Domenico Paolella, Luigi Capuano and the young Umberto Lenzi. This book traces the adventurous enterprise of Romana Film, with photographs and previously unpublished materials supplied by the Misano family.

This mainly photographic special edition of «Bianco e Nero» («Black and White»), published on the hundredth anniversary of cinema, pays tribute to a hundred stars that have marked the history of film. Many of the reviews are by Chiara Samugheo.

The volume describes the mythical era of “Hollywood on the Tiber”, the golden years of Cinecittà, when Rome was the true capital of cinema and when American divas descended the aircraft stairs at Ciampino Airport and strolled down Via Veneto to be immortalized by the paparazzi.

This issue is wholly dedicated to Bernardo Bertolucci. The magazine’s work “revolving around” Bertolucci yielded a rich mosaic that allows the reader to “observe”, passing from one piece to the next, and pause at one particular article or another and then go back altogether, in a way like watching a movie through a moviola or on a DVD player. However, the final result, as we believe it to be, is a unified and well-rounded portrait of one of the greatest talents in the history of world cinema and of his fantastic art of storytelling through images. A one-of-a-kind that, according to Treccani Encyclopaedia, is “a phenomenon that occurs only once, absolutely exceptional and unrepeatable”. That is precisely Bernardo Bertolucci. (From the editorial by Felice Laudadio). This issue contains contributions by: Edoardo Albinati, Niccolò Ammaniti, Francesco Barilli, Ilaria Bernardini, Andrea Carraro, Paolo Di Paolo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Dacia Maraini, Gabriella Palli Baroni, Romana Petri, Aurelio Picca, Ludovica Rampoldi, Lidia Ravera, Alberto Rollo, Antonio Scurati.

In the hundredth anniversary of Giuseppe De Santis’ birth, and the twentieth anniversary of his death, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia honors one of the great masters of Italian cinema presenting again, in collaboration with Association bearing his name, this publication ten years after its first edition. This volume looks at the films of this great director with contributions by his fellow authors and an analysis of his films by prominent scholars specialized in Italian film. This pubblication differ from the 2007 edition owing to the new text on pages 10, 12, 26, 48, the extended text on page 306, the updated bibliography, graphics, and almost totally fresh selection images, with numerous new images.

Over his long career, Piero Tosi has been an invaluable collaborator with all major Italian film directors. His costumes have dressed the characters of Gianni Amelio, Michelangelo Antonioni, Mauro Bolognini, Mario Camerini, Renato Castellani, Liliana Cavani, Luigi Comencini, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Lattuada, Mario Monicelli, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Antonio Pietrangeli, Dino Risi, Mario Soldati, Lina

The 592 issue of «Bianco e nero», the four-month magazine of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia directed by President Felice Laudadio, is dedicated to Alberto Sordi and the Collection that is fully available at the Cineteca Nazionale. With contributions by: Felice Laudadio, Walter Veltroni, Goffredo Fofi, Maurzio Porro, Benedetto Gemma, Gabriele Gimmelli, Marco Vanelli, Alberto

“Il giallo e il cinema in Italia” (1910-1972). A cross-sectional study that, with an original look, examines the overflowing vocation to mystery and its multiple variations. With a shiver in the back. Bilingual edition.

Two directors, Steno and Monicelli, two great showmen, Totò and Fabrizi, two producers, Ponti and De Laurentis. Two production projects. And two versions of the movie: on one side, the film we all know, which was released in cinemas at the time, on the other side, the version which has been preserved in the archives of the Cineteca Nazionale, whose differences highlight the grotesque, months-long clash between the production and the Direzione Generale dello Spettacolo (General Directorate of Entertainment). Using the discovery of this version as a starting point, Alberto Anile analyses the creative, productive and censorious development of a major masterpiece of Italian cinematography. He examines Guardie e ladri from the original idea up to the philological juxtaposition of the two versions, uncovering small and great behind-the-scenes anecdotes of a “twofold” opus which blends humour and bitterness, rebelliousness and detachment.

The CSC pays tribute to one of its most eminent teachers, Giuseppe Rotunno, great director of photography and the master of light of some of the showpieces that left a mark on film history. His contribution spans half a century of the history of cinema, with collaborations with Visconti, Fellini, De Sica, Rossellini, Wertmüller, Monicelli, Pietrangeli, Risi, Zurlini, Freda, Stanley Kramer, Bob Fosse, Mike Nichols, Robert Altman, Terry Gilliam.

This publication, beautifully illustrated with photographs of scenes from Adolfo Celi’s finest films, offers a more intimate and detailed insight into the life of this actor with accounts by relatives and close friends.

Critical re-appraisal of the film “Mater Dei”, Italy’s first ever full-length colour film, now digitally re-mastered.

This book, published during the retrospective dedicated to Titanus by the Festival del film Locarno in 2014, tells the history of the Italian production company from its origins until today. It’s published in a bilingual edition and it’s accompanied by a rich chronology.

The book, produced in cooperation with the National Film Library of Rome (CSC) and the National Museum of Cinema of Turin, collects the proceedings of the convention that was held at the Universities of Genoa, Pavia and Turin on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Renato Castellani (2013). For the first time, the work by the Ligurian director, who was a key figure in the Italian movie scene between the 40s and the 60s, has been analyzed from every angle, from his neo-realist masterpieces to his TV productions of the 70s and 80s.

Talented actress Laura Morante reveals herself in Stefano Iachetti’s long interview, which delves into Morante’s family’s past and her work in classic dance, theatre and film. Featuring writings and anecdotes by Pupi Avati, Piera Degli Esposti, Nicola Nocella, Carolina Crescentini, Nicola Piovani, Michele Placido, Carlo Verdone, Peter Del Monte and many more. The book includes photographs from Laura Morante’s private archive and stills from the Photographic Archive of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia.

Camilleri according to Camilleri: Camilleri as a professor at CSC, Inspector Montalbano, RAI, his literary work, scripts, theatre work and narrative thought. The newest issue of «Bianco e nero» is a 360-degree exploration of the life and works of Andrea Camilleri, the most resounding Italian publishing success of the last 30 years. In 1994 (at 69 years of age!) Camilleri, a professor at CSC, RAI employee, producer of legendary TV series such as “Il tenente Sheridan” and “L’ispettore Maigret” and director of hundreds of radio programs, publishes a novel with Sellerio Editore, “La forma dell’acqua”, where the character of Inspector Montalbano, who works in the imaginary Sicilian town Vigàta, is born. From its success, that spread from Italy to the whole world, stemmed the now beloved TV series. «Bianco e nero», includes writings and interviews of various friends and colleagues of Camilleri’s (including Luca Zingaretti and Michele Riondino, the two actors who starred as Montalbano), essays on all facets of his work and career and a long interview to the author (both written and recorded, dvd included) by Felice Laudadio.

In English the title is Othello. In Italian there is no h, Otello: out of all the versions of this film, Scalera’s is the oldest, longest, and perhaps the most beautiful. However, after its theatre release during fall 1951, quite surprisingly everybody forgot about it. Now, thanks to the National Film Library’s archives, Orson Welles’ Italian film comes back to light with never-before-seen images and cut scenes. Orson Welles (1915-1985) was one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema and Otello is the only italian film he realised.

The book reconstructs the multi-faceted personality of Claudio Gora (Emilio Giordana’s stage name, 1913-1998), director and actor. Ignored by Italian cinema, Gora was one of the great character actors of the 1960s and 70s specialising in the role of evil middle class men in Un Maledetto Imbroglio (1959) and Una Vita Difficile (1961) and an important director in the transition from Neorealism to modern film making in the 1960s.

The new issue of «Bianco e nero», a historical magazine published by the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, is entirely dedicated to Piero Tosi, one of the greatest costume designers in the history of cinema of all time. He has been one of the most long-established teachers of the School of Cinema of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, namely from 1988 to 2016: twenty-eight years of intense activity. Tosi worked with Luchino Visconti (from Bellissima, in 1951, onwards), Luigi Zampa, Franco Brusati, Mauro Bolognini, Mario Soldati, Dino Risi, Luigi Comencini, Mario Monicelli, Vittorio De Sica, Antonio Pietrangeli, Marco Ferreri, Federico Fellini, Lina Wertmüller, Alberto Lattuada, Renato Castellani, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Liliana Cavani, Fabio Carpi, Franco Zeffirelli, Gianni Amelio. He also worked in prose theatre, opera and television, not only as a costume designer, but also as set decorator and hairdresser. The monographic issue of «Bianco e nero» examines the multifaceted and vast experience of the great costume designer Piero Tosi, five times Academy Awards nominee and later Academy Honorary Award recipient.

This book focuses on brilliant director Augusto Tretti (Verona, 1924-2013), perhaps the most imaginative and unconventional among Italian directors, whose productive journeys was one of the longest and most tortuous in the history of Italian film-making. Previously unreleased documents from the Augusto Tretti Collection belonging the Experimental Cinematography Centre Foundation are published here for the first time.

Giorgio Arlorio (Turin, February 27th, 1929) was one of the most prominent figures of Italian post-war cinema. He worked with great masters (Gillo Pontecorvo, Dino Risi, Mario Camerini, Mario Monicelli, Mauro Bolognini) and wrote very successful B films (La Patata bollente by Steno, L’arciere delle mille e una notte by Antonio Margheriti, Il mercenario by Sergio Corbucci, Zorro by Duccio Tessari). He was an important TV author (he was the curator of Specchio segreto, a cult TV programme in the 1960s, with Nanni Loy) and taught screenwriting at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia for several years (1999-2016). His biography is a journey through Italian cinema, that defies the archetypal division between art-house films and B movies, between politically committed motion pictures and commercial works. Through a valuable series of stories, anecdotes and information, all marked by the subtle irony that is an essential part of his storytelling, Arlorio helps us to better understand the nature of Italian cinema, its truest and deepest essence.