The best Lucia Sardo’s movies

On the day in 1940 that Italy enters the war, two things happen to the 12-year-old Renato: he gets his first bike, and he gets his first look at Malèna. She is a beautiful, silent outsider who's moved to this Sicilian town to be with her husband, Nico. He promptly goes off to war, leaving her to the lustful eyes of the men and the sharp tongues of the women. During the next few years, as Renato grows toward manhood, he watches Malèna suffer and prove her mettle. He sees her loneliness, then grief when Nico is reported dead, the effects of slander on her relationship with her father, her poverty and search for work, and final humiliations. Will Renato learn courage from Malèna and stand up for her?

The true story of Peppino Impastato, a young political activist who opposed the Mafia in the small town of Cinisi, Sicily. "One hundred steps" was the distance between Impastato's house and the house of Mafia boss Tano Badalamenti.

Three very different women who are hiding a secret are forced to work together to save their own skin.

6th January 1975, in an infant nursery in Palermo (Italy), for a mysterious reason, a male nurse exchanges the labels of baby number 7 and 8. Thirty-one years later Tommaso (7) and Daniele (8) meet each other by accident.

Seven people in a therapy group are forced to find new ways of coping with their problems when their therapist dies in the middle of a session.

Davide is different from the other teenagers. Something makes him look like a girl. Davide is fourteen when he runs away from home. His intuition leads him to choose Villa Bellini, a park in Catania, as a refuge. The park is a world in itself, a world of the marginalized, to which the rest of the city turns a blind eye. But one day the past catches up and Davide has to face the most difficult choice, this time alone.

Maria Callas, one of the most talented opera singers of her time, seemed to have it all. Coming from humble origins, she always felt slighted by her mother's preference for her sister. She grew up in an unhappy environment, until her career in the operatic world took off. Aristotles Onassis also came from a poor Greek family. His ambition took him places where others dare not go and became a shipping magnate whose great wealth bought his entry into an international society he didn't ever dreamed of entering. These two powerful personalities were so much alike that their own passion served to destroy them.

Set in Sicily in the 1930's, Aurelio Grimaldi's feature debut chronicles the harsh story of twelve-year-old boy, Aclà, sold into slavery by his destitute parents to work in the underground Floristella sulfur mines. Overworked and underfed, Aclà toils from Monday to Saturday in the steamy, candle-lit labyrinths. Repeatedly beaten and abused by his "owner" and with constant threats of being raped, Aclà plots his escape to the sea... but this leads to dire consequences for the boy and his family.

A story of great women set in an impervious nature, told among the silence of the left unsaid.

Scenes from the lives of 7 hookers. Five are women. One is a man, and one is a transvestite.

In the northeast of Italy, the workers of a lingerie factory are about to be fired. Not far away, a handful of nuns, skilled in the art of embroidery and devoted to the Blessed Armida, risk being removed from their beloved convent. To oppose a destiny already marked, workers and nuns join forces and start a "business" outside the rules in the hopes that a miracle will help them keep the convent and the factory.

Salvatore is a young orphan, living in Sicily with his little sister and his grandmother; after loosing his father in a tragic way he quits school and starts working as a fisherman and a farmer in order to support his little family. The Social Services soon discover the situation and resolve to put Salvatore in an orphanage, parting him from his family. Only a young, idealistic teacher (Enrico Lo Verso) tries to help him, going everyday after school to his house, to teach him the lessons he misses in the morning and to work with him in his greenhouse or on his fishing boat.