Mino Bellei

Cavani made her first full-length feature film in 1966 with Francis of Assisi (Francesco d'Assisi). Made for television and aired in two parts, it was deeply influenced by the style of Rossellini and the atmosphere typical of the films of Pasolini. Made in a period of political unrest, it was to become a kind of manifesto of dissenting Catholicism. Starring Lou Castel, it portrays Francis of Assisi as a slightly depressed protestor and an avid, albeit mad, supporter of armed brotherhood. The ideal defender of the 1968 student movement. The film was a great success, but also triggered many negative reactions. It was called "heretical, blasphemous and offensive for the faith of the Italian people". It was the first of many polemical reactions to Cavani's work.

Florence, XVIe siècle. Callimaco, adroit séducteur, rêve de conquérir la belle et inaccessible Lucrezia, épouse légitime de maître Nicia, juriste renommé. Celui-ci ne parvient pas à obtenir d'enfant avec sa femme. Callimaco se sert de cette situation pour échafauder un stratagème. Il se fait passer pour un médecin d'expérience et de grande réputation auprès de Nicia, finalement assez crédule et stupide pour croire aux allégations de Callimaco. Le film est une adaptation de la comédie éponyme, écrite vraisemblablement en 1518, par Nicolas Machiavel.

Franco Riva, a geologist who works in Ivory Coast, suddenly returns to Italy, to Genoa, to see his girlfriend, Claudia Fiori, of whom he has not heard for some time. Riva gathers various information about his fate. The concierge of her apartment, which she left two months ago, claims that Claudia has rented a house on the Riviera and got married. Instead, Claudia's sister, Laura, excludes that she might have gotten married without telling her anything and shows the man a postcard that Claudia sent her from Stockholm, where she told her that she was moving for the company where she worked. But the owner of the company, Piero Ricci, denies even the existence of a branch in Stockholm. So Franco turns to the police...

A pacifist pest controller tries to catch the rat infesting a nuclear power plant.

Un pantin de bois nommé Pinocchio, créé par Gepetto, un vieux menuisier toscan, s'anime par la magie de la Fée Bleue. Devenu un vrai petit garçon, il fait l'apprentissage de la vie. Au lieu d'aller à l'école, Pinocchio se rend au théâtre de marionnettes de Mangiafuoco. Sans le savoir, il s'apprête à vivre de grandes aventures dans de merveilleux endroits comme le Pays des Jouets, et, à rencontrer de drôles de personnages comme Lucignolo, un adolescent déluré, ou encore un chat et un renard - deux fripouilles - qui vont lui donner du fil à retordre...

Groundbreaking in its own way, Bionda fragola is inspired by The Boys in The Band, La cage aux folles (shot two years earlier), with a touch of Neil Simon. Based on a stage drama (1978), it is the first comedy film to focus on a light, "normalized" homosexual lifestyle. It is an important and courageous (for the period in which it was shot) example of Italian-style camp, which tells the story of a stable gay couple. Accountant Antonio (Umberto Orsini) and pharmacist Domenico (Mino Bellei) live together as if they were married, but their relationship becomes shaky when model Adriano comes on the scene. Bionda fragola was written, directed and interpreted by theatre director and actor Mino Bellei. The title recalls the much referenced, homonymous movie of 1941directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Rita Hayworth (The Strawberry Blonde).