Liliana Cavani Filmography

Born:: January 12, 1936 in Carpi, Italy
Occupation:: Director, Screenwriter
Biography:: By 1989, director Liliana Cavani had made ten feature films and seven documentaries for RAI, Italian television. She went to work for the national network in the mid 1960s, soon after graduating from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. Most of Cavani's feature films are based on...Read More

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La Traviata at La Scala

Crew: Stage Director

Synopsis: The Teatro Alla Scalla mounted this 2008 production of Giuseppe Verdi's 1853 opera Traviata, directed by the eminent Liliana Cavani (The Night Porter) and starring Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Frontali, Ramón Vargas and Natascha Petrinsky. The Orchestra, Chorus and Ballet of the Teatro Alla Scala Read More

2008
Marcello: A Sweet Life

Actors: Philippe Noiret, Ettore Scola, Armando Trovajoli, Chiara Mastroianni, Barbara Mastroianni

Synopsis: Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996) was arguably the most famous and respected leading man in the history of Italian cinema. A favorite of such directors Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Michelangelo Antonioni, Mastroianni's fame in Europe extended to the United States, where he was nominated Read More

2006
Ripley's Game

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: John Malkovich, Dougray Scott, Ray Winstone, Lena Headey, Chiara Caselli

Synopsis: The cool and mannered sociopath Tom Ripley returns to the big screen in director Liliana Cavani's 2002 crime thriller Ripley's Game, adapted from the 1974 novel by Patricia Highsmith. Living a life of luxury as an art dealer in northern Italy with his musician wife Luisa (Chiara Caselli), Ripley (John Malkovich Read More

9/28/03
Manon Lescaut

Crew: Director, Stage Director

Actors: Maria Guleghina, Lucio Gallo, Jose Cura, Luigi Roni, Marco Berti

Synopsis: This performance of Giacomo Puccini's opera, Manon Lescaut features Maria Guleghina in the title role, accompanied by the Coro del Teatro alla Scala and the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scalla. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide Read More

1998
Dove Siete? Io Sono Qui

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Chiara Caselli, Anna Bonaiuto, Valeria D'Obici

Synopsis: Fausto (Gaetano Carotenuto) is a deaf boy who has been trained from birth to live exclusively in the hearing world. His mother (Anna Bonaiuto) has refused to allow him to meet or interact with other deaf children, much less learn sign language. As a consequence, he gets along (with some Read More

1993
Francesco

Crew: Director, Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: Mickey Rourke, Helena Bonham Carter, Paolo Bonacelli, Andréa Ferréol, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: Told in flashback, the film relates Francis of Assisi's evolution from rich man's son to religious humanitarian and eventually to full-fledged saint. Francesco was based on Hermann Hesse's Francis of Assisi, which director Liliana Cavani had previously filmed in 1966. The Saint and founder of the Read More

3/22/89
The Berlin Affair

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Gudrun Landgrebe, Kevin McNally, Mio Takaki, Hanns Zischler, Andrea Prodan, Philippe Leroy, Massimo Girotti

Synopsis: In 1938 Berlin, Gudrun Landgrebe, wife of Nazi functionary Kevin McNally, begins taking art lessons. She makes the acquaintance of another student, Japanese ambassador's daughter Mio Takaki. Soon afterwards, the two women begin a passionate lesbian affair. This leads to a chain reaction of Read More

1/1/85
Oltre la Porta

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Marcello Mastroianni, Eleonora Giorgi, Tom Berenger, Michel Piccoli

Synopsis: Tom Berenger seems bemused by his surroundings in the Italian Beyond Obsession. An American engineer, Berenger falls in love with Eleanora Giorgi, and as these things are wont to happen, he ends up in bed with her. But Eleanora carries a great deal of emotional baggage in the person of her Read More

9/17/82
La Pelle

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Marcello Mastroianni, Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Ken Marshall

Synopsis: The Italian La Pelle was released in English-speaking countries as The Skin. Set in the twilight of World War 2, the film is a compendium of bitter recollections concerning the Allied liberation of Naples. These memories were originally bundled together in book form by Curzio Malaparte, played Read More

9/24/81
Al di la del Bene e del Male

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Dominique Sanda, Erland Josephson, Robert Powell, Virna Lisi, Philippe Leroy

Synopsis: A misguided attempt to dramatize the psychological triad formed by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (Erland Josephson), his Jewish friend Paul Rees (Robert Powell), and a Russian girl named Lou Von Salome (Dominique Sanda), this overbearing drama fails mightily. Nietzsche is portrayed as a Read More

10/7/77
The Night Porter

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling, Philippe Leroy, Gabriele Ferzetti, Isa Miranda

Synopsis: Max (Dirk Bogarde) is a discreet, unassuming night porter working in a posh hotel in Vienna in 1957, tending to the guests' needs, from cold water to a bed-warming gigolo. Then Lucia (Charlotte Rampling) arrives at the hotel, on the arm of her husband, an American composer, and Max's past comes Read More

4/11/74
Milarepa

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: An Italian car crash sends its victims adrift in time back to 11th-century Tibet where they re-enact the dramatic story of the poet-sage Milarepa. One of the car's occupants, a young man (Lajos Balasovitz), experiences first hand the power and use of the awesome black magic commonly recounted in Read More

1/31/74
L'Ospite

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Synopsis: L'Ospite is a psychological melodrama about a family whose self-deception is revealed when a stranger intrudes. A middle-aged woman introduces her lover to her children, who are about the same age. The reaction of the daughter (the main character) turns the potentially comic situation into a real Read More

2/26/72
I Cannibali

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Britt Ekland, Pierre Clémenti, Francesco Leonetti, Delia Boccardo

Synopsis: This story of youthful rebellion is taken from the ancient Greek classic "Antigone." The setting is modern times and Britt Eklund plays Antigone in a fictitious land where reality is suspended. Haimon (Tomas Milian) goes against the wishes of his father and the prime minister by wanting to become Read More

4/29/70
Galileo

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Cyril Cusack, Lou Castel, Gigi Ballista, Paolo Graziosi

Synopsis: Somewhat overshadowed by Joseph Losey's 1975 film on the same subject, the 1968 Italian/Bulgarian biopic Galileo is a worthwhile picture in its own right. Irish stage and screen actor Cyril Cusack is well-cast as Galileo Galilei, famed astronomer and unintentional icon-buster. Stirring up Read More

9/7/68