Paolo Taviani Filmography

Born:: November 8, 1931 in San Miniato, Pisa, Italy
Occupation:: Director, Screenwriter
Biography:: Italian filmmaker Paolo Taviani and his brother Vittorio, known for their politically charged re-workings of historical events, began their long, fruitful collaboration while still in school. Their earliest films were documentaries, and their liberal political tendencies are already apparent in...Read More

Sort By:
Title
Release Date

40 x 15

Synopsis: Director Olivier Jahan offers an glimpse into The Director's Fortnight, a sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival conceived by a group of filmmakers known as the Société des Réalisateurs de Films who sought to counter the academism of the main part of the world-renowned festival. Pierre-Henri Deleau Read More

2008
The Lark Farm

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Paz Vega, Arsinée Khanjian, Tchéky Karyo, Moritz Bleibtreu, Mohammad Bakri

Synopsis: As adapted from the roman by Antonia Arslan and co-directed by legendary Italian brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, The Lark Farm marks one of the few international features to tackle the Armenian genocide head-on. The story (with its thematic parallels, in the early scenes, to De Sica's Read More

2007
Luisa Sanfelice

Crew: Director

2005
Domani

Actors: Marco Baliani, Ornella Muti, Valerio Mastandrea, Ilaria Occhini, Patrizia Piccinini

Synopsis: In a village rocked by an earthquake, one family struggles to make a new home for themselves while juggling a variety of personal crises. In a small town in Umbia, an earthquake devastates several neighborhoods, and Paolo Zerenghi (Marco Baliani), the city's deputy mayor, finds himself in charge Read More

1/26/01
Risurrezione

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Stefania Rocca, Timothy Peach, Giulio Scarpati, Marina Vlady, Antonella Ponziani

Synopsis: Paolo Taviani and his brother Vittorio Taviani wrote and directed this made-for-TV adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's final novel. Wealthy and privileged Prince Dmitri Nekhludov (Timothy Peach) is called to serve on the jury of a woman accused of prostitution and murder. When the accused is brought Read More

2001
You Laugh

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Antonio Albanese, Sabrina Ferilli, Luca Zingaretti, Giuseppe Cederna, Elena Ghiaurov

Synopsis: Novellas by Luigi Pirandello provided the source for this Italian anthology of two tales written and directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. "Felice," set in Rome of the '30s, focuses on former opera baritone Felice (Antonio Albanese), now an accountant at the Teatro dell'Opera. Felice roars with Read More

1998
Elective Affinities

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Marie Gillain

Synopsis: This French-Italian romantic drama is faithfully based on an early 19th century Goethe novel about the destruction of a married couple. They are Charlotte and Edouard, an aristocratic couple who married late in life and happily lives in a lovely Tuscan villa. Their peaceful, marital bliss is Read More

6/11/97
La Vera Vita di Antonio H.

Actors: Alessandro Haber, Adriana Innocenti, Giancarlo Maestri, Beatrice Kruger, Doris Von Thury

Synopsis: This unique Italian pseudo-documentary deftly blends fact with fiction in its portrait of stage, screen, and television actor Alessandro Haber (a.k.a. Antonio Hutter). Haber, considered one of Italy's finest comic actors, has worked with some of the greatest Italian directors of all time Read More

1994
Fiorile

Crew: Director, Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: Renato Carpentieri, Claudio Bigagli, Galatea Ranzi, Michael Vartan, Constanze Engelbrecht

Synopsis: In Fiorile (US title: Wild Flower), Italy's Taviani brothers once again dissect the manners and mores of the Tuscany region. The story is predicated on a 200-year-old family curse. During the Napoleonic era, Elizabetta "Fiorile" Benedetti (Galatea Ranzi) discovers that her own brother Corado (Claudio Bigagli Read More

1993
Night Sun

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Julian Sands, Nastassja Kinski, Patricia Millardet, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Massimo Bonetti

Synopsis: In this film, Tolsoy's classic story Father Sergius is translated from 19th century Russia to 19th century Italy. As in the original story, Sergio (Julian Sands) is a nobleman and a military cadet who is posted in a position close to the (in this case Neapolitan) throne. He is about go through Read More

1990
Good Morning, Babylon

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Vincent Spano, Joaquim de Almeida, Greta Scacchi, Omero Antonutti

Synopsis: The always innovative Taviani Brothers pay homage to another unique filmmaker, D. W. Griffith, in Good Morning, Babylon. Vincent Spano and Joaquim de Almeida star as Nicola and Andrea Bonnano, the latest in a long line of Tuscany-born cathedral builders. Emigrating to America, the brothers settle Read More

7/15/87
Kaos

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Margarita Lozano, Claudio Bigagli, Massimo Bonetti, Enrica Maria Modugno, Franco Franchi

Synopsis: Italy's fraternal filmmaking team of Paolo and Vittorio Taviani whip up another multistoried slice of life in Kaos. "Life," in this case, is seen from the peculiar perspective of author Luigi Pirandello, four of whose pieces are herein adapted. "The Other Son" finds Margarita Lozano making the Read More

11/23/84
The Night of the Shooting Stars

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Omero Antonutti, Margarita Lozano

Synopsis: In Tuscan lore, the evening of August 10th is la notte di san lorenzo (the night of the shooting stars). Each of these stars is believed to grant one wish. In this celebrated film by Italy's Taviani brothers, a woman asks for the words to tell her son about that same night during the last Read More

9/16/82
Il Prato

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Michele Placido, Saverio Marconi, Isabella Rossellini, Giulio Brogi

Synopsis: The Italian "directing siblings" Paolo and Vittorio Taviani were responsible for this intriguing slice of working-class life. Saverio Marconi plays Giovanni, a Milan youth who heads to poverty-plagued Tuscany to sell some property. Giovanni falls in with several smalltown "rebels", including clerk Read More

9/6/79
Padre Padrone

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Omero Antonutti, Marcella Michelangeli, Fabrizio Forte

Synopsis: Based on an autobiographical book by Gavino Ledda, Padre Padrone is filmed in Sardinian, a regional Italian dialect. The film concentrates on a young, barely literate shepherd boy, who lives under the thumb of his tyrannical peasant father. Rescued from his family--and his isolated lifestyle--when Read More

9/2/77
St. Michael Had a Rooster

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Anarchism, socialism, anarcho-socialism: there were enough different varieties of these three political philosophies to fuel hundreds of political movements in late 19th-century Europe. This Italian film looks at the life of one committed radical anarchist from this period. Giulio Manieri is true Read More

3/5/75
Allonsanfan

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Marcello Mastroianni, Lea Massari, Laura Betti, Bruno Cirino

Synopsis: In Allonsanfan, the director/brother team of Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani weave a witty and occasionally melancholic tale of 19th century radicalism in Italy. Marcello Mastroianni stars as Fulvio, a middle-aged man swept up in a extremist political movement. The more he protests that he Read More

9/6/74
Sotto Il Segno Dello Scorpione

Crew: Director, Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: Gian Maria Volontè, Lucia Bosé, Giulio Brogi, Samy Pavel

Synopsis: This symbolic film underscores the struggles between a group of visionaries versus the Establishment while wondering about the survival of humankind. A group of young men manage to escape a volcano eruption on their small island. Seeking a new life, they stop at an island between their destroyed Read More

8/27/69
I Sovversivi

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Ferrucio de Ceresa, Lucio Dalla, Giorgio Arlorio, Giulio Brogi

Synopsis: This political Italian drama is set after the death of that country's communist leader, Palmiero Togliatti. It is a time when the glory days of communism have passed and the party is trying to settle into the serious business of running a country. The film takes an episodic approach to chronicle Read More

9/8/67
I Fuorilegge Del Matrimonio

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

12/3/63
Un Uomo Da Bruciare

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Gian Maria Volontè, Didi Perego, Lydia Alfonsi

Synopsis: Three novice directors went in together to write and direct this routine drama about the Mafia in Sicily. Salvatore (Gian Maria Volonte) lives in a rural environment on the island, and when he becomes fed up with Mafia tactics, he swings into action. First he convinces the farmers and workers that Read More

1962
San Miniato, Iuglio '44

Crew: Director

1954