The best Gianni Cavina’s movies

In a small mountain village lives a man with a challenging name, Giuseppe Garibaldi (one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland"), but everybody call him with the nickname Peppino. Love fishing, the company of friends, the library where he works as a precarious employee. He is an optimistic person even if his child accuse him of being a wannabe. One day, due to a mess of politicians, an amazing thing happens: Peppino is mistakenly elected President of the Italian Republic. Pulled out from his quiet life, is to play a role for which he knows he is obviously inappropriate, but his common sense and his instinctive gestures are incredibly effective, except for the etiquette, for which he is in trouble. The inflexible and fascinating Deputy Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, Janis Clementi, is anxious to no avail in an attempt to regulate the unpredictable actions of the President...

The United States of America, after the great success of Vietnam, Watergate and so on, have decided to expand their activities in Italy. Mr. Chips has chosen Eddie Mordace to open the Italian branch of the multinational American Love Company. So Eddie opens in Milan a small branch of the Company whose purpose is to comfort women. Eddie hires Simbad, Adone and later, when business starts to go well, Ugolino, a real Count, and Ivanoe, a raper, who becames the attraction of the House.

A large international cast takes part in this comedy in which the stories of numerous individuals whose cars are stalled in a massive Roman traffic jam are told.

A young restorer is commissioned to save a fresco representing the suffering of St. Sebastiano, which was painted on the wall of a local church by a mysterious, long-dead artist.

The innkeeper Mirandolina is a beautiful girl, and for her beauty the Count of Albafiorita and the Marquis of Forlimpopoli fall in love.

A group of former friends meets again after a very long time, in a Christmas night, with the intent of ripping off a rich industrialist in a game of Poker. Old hatreds and mistrusts conflict with the nostalgia for the lost friendships.

Mariana and Domenico are on the run from her jealous boyfriend who just happens to be an over-jealous professional football player.

Bologna, 1954. Taddeo, a young man of 18 whom everyone calls Kid, dreams of becoming one of the regulars of the mythical Margherita Café, located under the portico across from his family's home. Through a ploy, he manages to get work as the chauffeur for Al, the neighborhood's most glamorous and mysterious resident. Having been taken under Al's wing, Taddeo gets to witness the adventures of Bep, who is in love with Marcella the entraineuse; the trials and tribulations of Gian, an aspiring singer and the victim of a horrible practical joke; the crazy behavior of Manuelo, a small-time robber with a sex phobia; the meanness of Zanchi, inventor of the elastic necktie; and the bizarre manias of Sarti, a ballroom dancing champion who wears his tux day and night. And Taddeo's home life is no less out of the ordinary, considering his mother is being led on by the family physician while his grandfather has fallen head over heels for a well-built piano teacher.

Franco Elica is a film director casting a remake of a pious melodrama in Rome. He's melancholy, heading south for a break. On a beach, he meets a man who films weddings and is roped into helping film the wedding of the daughter of a severe and imperious prince. The wedding is one of convenience - the prince needs money, the groom is a mama's boy. Elica is attracted to the bride, Boda, and tries to convince her not to marry. No matter how outrageous his behavior, the prince keeps Elica on as the wedding director. As the wedding approaches, what's real blurs with Elica's imagination. Is he mad?

A fig tree located in the lands of a baron of the lower Padana has for many centuries been the subject of veneration. The baron, crippled and atheist, one day sees a girl lying on the fig tree in a benevolent attitude and exchanges for the holy venerated by her villagers. Immediately the aristocrat converts and decides to give his belongings to a religious institute. In fact, he was a victim of a cheating and the "santa" is a prostitute who has given up on rage.

Lino Settembre and his wife Chicca lead a tranquil married life without any serious problems. They are satisfied with their careers. He's the sports editor at the Messenger and she's a professor of medieval languages at the Universita' Gregoriana. The only true disappointment in their 25 years of marriage has been the lack of children. They used the situation to strengthen their marriage instead of letting it become real problem. But now, in a totally unexpected way, they're presented with a big worry: Lino is having some really serious memory problems that little by little get worse and start to interrupt the routine of their daily lives and activities both at home and at work. At first both Lino and Chicca decide to laugh it off but the problem manifests itself more and more until, after careful attention and in-depth medical exams, they receive the diagnosis of degenerative brain disease that's destroying his brain.

The annual film festival in Venice is, of course, an ideal place to make a film (how come no-one has thought of it before). Everything is there in Pupi Avati's Festival: the famous hotels Des Bain and Excelsior on the Lido, the shimmering sandy beach which captivated Visconti. The film was made last spring and exploits the presence of passing film stars such as Jack Nicholson. We see the hysterical press conferences, where journalists and experts ask intelligent questions-without listening to the answers.