The Salt of Life (Gianni e le Donne)

Warm and sincere bittersweet comedy with loose, naturalistic style

(12A) 89min Rome-born Gianni Di Gregorio is one of Italian cinema’s late starters. Having studied acting as a young man, he spent many years working as assistant director and screenwriter before beginning a fruitful collaboration with young…

GFT Heartworn Highways season screens 1970s Americana

Fat City, Wise Blood, The Last Picture Show and documentary Heartworn Highways

Featuring small-time boxers, bible-thumping preachers, teenagers stumbling toward adulthood and outlaw country singers, this short season offers a rare opportunity to savour four idiosyncratic snapshots of 1970s Americana. From the filmography of John…

Jean Eustache

In an interview given on the eve of the 26th Cannes Film Festival in May 1973, Jean Eustache voiced his frustration at the reception of his work and his troubled relationship with the film industry in France. ‘Although my films have always been…

Valerio Zurlini

Italian Stallion

In one of his last-ever interviews, Italian director Valerio Zurlini discussed his life-long passion for Leo Tolstoy. 'What I find extraordinary in his work,' Zurlini observed, 'is the remarkable fusion between public and private history'. Zurlini never…

Film Season - Marcello Mastroianni

The son of a carpenter, Mastroianni trained as a draughtsman and served time in a Nazi labour camp during the war. Upon his release, he became involved in amateur dramatics. He made his film début in Riccardo Fredda’s I Miserabili (1948) and, at around…

Berlin Alexanderplatz: Remastered

The recent deaths of art cinema colossi Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni – at the ages of 89 and 94 respectively – led me to wonder about some of the great filmmakers who did not make it to their fifth decade, let alone approach their tenth.