Best movies like Strehler: Il mago dei prodigi

The colorful holiday classic is finally brought to the big screen, designed by famed children's story author and artist Maurice Sendak, and written for the first time to be as close as possible to the original story. A lavish, exciting and heart-warming celebration of dance, of music, and of life. Based upon the Pacific Northwest Ballet's original production.

Professor Serafino Benvenuti is a master of classical music who has the passion of the orchestra director. However, the young audience of the 60 does not appreciate classical composers like Mozart or Beethoven, and so Serafino is likely to have compromised his image as a director. One day Serafino receives the news that his adopted daughter Rita is about to return to Italy from America, where she is studying. Serafino is very happy, because at least he can teach her the real music. However, Rita is deeply grown and changed: she follows the musical patterns of her time: the rock music and blues. Serafino gets very angry, especially when he discovers that his daughter falls in love with a young man, a member of a band called "The Rockets.

Shot in France, England, Switzerland and the United States, this documentary covers director Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo, Holy Mountain, Santa Sangre) and his 1974 Quixotic attempt to adapt the seminal sci-fi novel Dune into a feature film. After spending 2 years and millions of dollars, the massive undertaking eventually fell apart, but the artists Jodorowsky assembled for the legendary project continued to work together. This group of artists, or his “warriors” as Jodorowsky named them, went on to define modern sci-fi cinema with such films as Alien, Blade Runner, Star Wars and Total Recall.

Joe Gideon is at the top of the heap, one of the most successful directors and choreographers in musical theater. But he can feel his world slowly collapsing around him - his obsession with work has almost destroyed his personal life, and only his bottles of pills keep him going.

Ensemble drama centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer who's poised to become a principal performer.

One of the great mavericks of cinema, John Cassavetes has earned a reputation as the godfather of American independent movies. The actor-turned-filmmaker invented a realist style of unadorned narrative films heavily influenced by documentaries. This in-depth analysis of Cassavetes' life and work features interviews with key collaborators and ensemble regulars, and explores the making of classics like "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie," "Opening Night" and "A Woman Under the Influence."

A celebrity journalist, juggling her busy career and personal life, has her life over-turned by a freak car accident.

A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.

Bruno Bonomo was a famous producer of B-movies in the ‘70s. After a long hiatus, Bonomo offers a screenplay to RAI centered on the figure of Italy’s prime minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, a subject so controversial that even the public television broadcaster refuses to produce it

The owner of a bank (Miss Bitterman) wants to own the Muppet Theatre so she can build a nightclub over it. After she tricks Pepe into giving her the only copy of the contract between her father and the Muppets, she changes it so the Muppets have very little time to pay a debt they owe. Meanwhile, the Muppets are trying to put on a Christmas show. After the Muppets are confronted by Bitterman, they make a lot of sacrifices to save up so they can keep the Theatre.

The great hypnotist Professor Montserrat has developed a technique for controlling the minds, and sharing the sensations, of his subjects. He and his wife Estelle test the technique on Mike Roscoe, and enjoy 'being' the younger man. But Estelle soon grows to love the power of controlling Roscoe, and the vicarious pleasures that provides. How far will she go, and can the Professor restrain her in time?

With commentary from Hollywood stars, outtakes from his movies and footage from his youth, this documentary looks at Stanley Kubrick's life and films. Director Jan Harlan, Kubrick's brother-in-law and sometime collaborator, interviews heavyweights like Jack Nicholson, Woody Allen and Sydney Pollack, who explain the influence of Kubrick classics like "Dr. Strangelove" and "2001: A Space Odyssey," and how he absorbed visual clues from disposable culture such as television commercials.

On a trip to Paris Sally meets Pablo, a tango dancer. He starts teaching her to dance then she returns to London to work on some "projects". She visits Buenos Aires and learns more from Pablo's friends. Sally and Pablo meet again but this time their relationship changes, she realises they want different things from each other. On a trip to Buenos Aires they cement their friendship.

The real story of the partisan Silvio Corbari. He starts his career killing publicly one of his friends that was a fascist. Than, he set up a band of partisans in north Italy, completely independent from the Italian organized resistance (CLN). Ines, leave his husband to join the band and became Silvio's lover. Silvio Corbari succeeded also to set up a free-zone, his personal republic, independent from the Nazi occupied Italy, in a little village called Tregnano. But the opponent Nazi-Fascist army is too much for any kind of resistance, especially if not included in the organized CNL. All his partisan friends are captured and sentenced to death, Ines, close to be captured, suicides. Corbari, even if survives to a first hanging, can't escape to a second one. After WWII he deserved a gold medal to the memory from the Italian Republic.

Produced by RAI and filmed in the Turin studios in 1979 but edited years later, in 2001-2002, this is the staging for TV of Carmelo Bene's play of the same name. One of his last works, it premiered in 2002, on March 18, immediately after his death, at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.

Journalist Will Roczinsky is dead. He was investigating UFO sightings. A TV broadcast summarizes the events up to his death. When broadcast at the time, viewers believed to be watching a documentary instead of a teleplay.

Bruce Lee is universally recognized as the pioneer who elevated martial arts in film to an art form, and this documentary will reveal why Bruce Lee's flame burns brighter now than the day he died over three decades ago. The greatest martial artists, athletes, actors, directors, and producers in the entertainment business today will share their feelings about the one who started it all. We will interview the people whose lives, careers, and belief systems were forever altered by the legendary "Father of Martial Arts Cinema". Rarely seen archival footage and classic photos will punctuate the personal testimonials. Prepare to be inspired.

A new version of Truman Capote's 1956 tale based on his own bittersweet upbringing in Alabama. The story deals with a seven-year-old who forms a special friendship with his simple, older cousin whose two sisters and bachelor brother feel he needs better influences and role models and decide to send him to military school after the Christmas holidays.

The story of how Jim Henson tried to convince broadcasters that The Muppets was a great idea and how he worked to get the characters on air where they became a comedy staple.

Over a 50-year career and more than a hundred movies, filmmaker John Ford (1894-1973) forged the legend of the Far West. By giving a face to the underprivileged, from humble cowboys to persecuted minorities, he revealed like no one else the great social divisions that existed and still exist in the United States. More than four decades after his death, what remains of his legacy and humanistic values in the memory of those who love his work?

Her name conjures up beauty, grace, talent and style. One of the greatest actresses of her time, she is best remembered for a natural and vulnerable persona which was so genuine and alluring. Her cinematic contributions produced such classics as Casablanca, Gaslight, and Anastasia. But Ingrid's story goes deeper than the triumphs of her movie career. Ingrid Bergman Remembered is a loving retrospective of a woman who lived a remarkable life. Ingrid's daughters Pia Lindström and Isabella Rossellini take a personal look back at the life of their mother. Seen from their perspective, this profile of Ingrid goes beyond the acting career and tells the story of her life from her childhood in Sweden to her premature death at age 67 from breast cancer.

She is the godmother of performance art. With her shocking public actions she created in the late 60s images that have burned into the general visual memory until today. The life and work of the Austrian artist Valie Export exemplify a development in art history in which women sought and found new ways and means of expression. Her work provides a feminist counterpart to the Viennese actionism of her time, which has influenced numerous artists of subsequent generations. The innovative diversity of her artistic approaches makes Valie Export an icon of 20th century art history.

The film is the autobiographical history of the theatre director Pippo Delbono, who recounts the most meaningful moments of his life, up to the present day, along with the characters he has met during his career. It is a poetic statement, a portrait of his own artistic journey from theatre to reality and back. The actors play themselves, a typical element of Delbono's work.

The story of the dog from the title, who in a frame narrative explains how he came to be transformed from an unemployed communist filmmaker into a canine with a philosophical bent. Unable to finance his new project, young Berlin-based director Julian tells foreign exchange student Camille that his job in the countryside is research for an upcoming film. When Camille offers to help, he is forced to uphold the lie. The plantation isn’t the proletarian idyll he had hoped for, but fortunately the reincarnation of Francis of Assisi provides spiritual insight and a new aim in life.

This documentary celebrates the 100th anniversary of the cinema birth. It is an historic running through the technical and artistic evolution of the 7th art. We move from mute to sound, from B&W to color, trough all the genders (musical, Lyric, politic...). Beside it we have a kind of resume of the historic contest in which cinema lived till now, events and movements (neo-realism, classical etc.). All the aspects are taken in consideration: fashion, star system till the end, the sad end, of cinema in the theaters.

Michele Apicella lives in Rome, in an apartment paid for by his father. Abandoned by his wife and his son Andrea, he occupies his time acting in an experimental theater company under the artistic direction of his friend Fabio.

Mark Knopfler is one of the most successful musicians in the world. During the past 30 years he has written and recorded over 300 songs including some of the most famous in popular music. In this in-depth documentary he talks about how these songs have defined him and how they have been influenced by his own life and roots. It features previously unseen photographs from his personal collection and comprehensive footage spanning his career from a struggling musician playing in pubs in Leeds in the 1970s, to the record-breaking success with Dire Straits and his world tour as a solo artist. Looking back over the 25 years since he wrote the iconic Brothers In Arms album, the film takes an affectionate look at how this formidable, creative man has operated as a musician for three decades and how he continues to do so as a solo artist who is as much in demand as ever.

This documentary, made seven years after the death of legendary filmmaker and kinetic artist Len Lye, tells Lye's story: from being a young boy staring at the sun, to travels around the Pacific and life in New York. It includes excerpts from many of his films, and interviews with second wife Ann and biographer Roger Horrocks. Len Lye himself is often heard, outlining his ideas of the ‘old brain’ and how Māori and Aboriginal art influenced his work. The grandeur of his ideas are only matched by their scale, with steel sculptures designed to be "at least 20 foot high".

A struggling actress is cast in her last off (off) Broadway show - a modern take on “A Christmas Carol” - before giving up her dream and moving home. Instead, she finds romance with her director and a renewed passion for her craft and the city. But when the historic theater loses its lease and the show is set to fold, she and her cast mates are need of a Christmas miracle.

With the hopes of a new life for his family, Bruce Diaz left the harsh city for the serene and majestic mountains of California. The Diaz family's first day in their new house would go down as one of the most violent 24 hours any family could ever imagine. With no serviceable evidence being retrieved and no witnesses to speak, the case was eventually dismissed. Several years later, the family's personal home movie footage was released by anonymous source. "Home Video" tells the family's story, through their eyes.

Across America, the morning of September 11, 2001 began routinely, with news and radio broadcasts sharing local human interest stories and traffic reports. But by 9 a.m., the day's narrative had taken a tragic turn. Most of us are familiar with the national news coverage of 9/11, but the local reporting from TV and radio affiliates across the nation was no less important and no less compelling. This is an account of the tragedy as it unfolded, and as it aired in American cities large and small, told without narration or interviews.

Based on a narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott and set against the backdrop of feudal Scotland, "La Donna del Lago" is one of Gioacchini Rossini's finest operas -- yet it's rarely performed. This video gives viewers a rare opportunity to see the work in its entirety. Filmed at Italy's famed Teatro alla Scala in 1992 and staged by German film director Werner Herzog, the opera features vocalists Ricardo Muti and June Anderson in leading roles.

Diana Damrau, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, Pietro Spagnoli, Marcella Orsatti Talamanca, and Monica Bacelli star in this La Scala production of the Mozart opera conducted by Gerard Korsten and directed by Giorgio Strehler.

Eliane Walther's puppet theater has been presenting fairy tales for children since 2008. She creates a magical and poetic world with simple means. Everything is created by hand in miniature form, from the witch's house, the protagonists and the books to the vegetable garden. During theatrical performances, Eliane Walther varies her own voice for each character. This brings the wonders and adventures of the stories to life and delights her audience.

Diving into the making of this iconic film directed by John Boorman and starring Lee Marvin. Delve into Marvin's war experiences shaping his intense performances, Boorman's transition from BBC director to cinematic innovator, and the unique adaptation of Donald E. Westlake's novel. Discover the creative synergy between Marvin and Boorman, leading to groundbreaking narrative structures, thematic color use, and cinematic techniques. Witness the film's evolution from mixed initial reviews to a cult classic, influencing the crime genre and showcasing the power of collaboration in filmmaking.