Cinema Paradiso (1988) on Netflix
In a postwar Sicilian town, a boy called Totò befriends Alfredo, the Cinema Paradiso's projectionist. Years later, as Salvatore Di Vita, a film director, he learns that Alfredo has died.
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Plot summary
In Rome, Salvatore Di Vita, a film director, comes home late and learns that Alfredo has died. He has not set foot in Giancaldo, his Sicilian home village, for thirty years, and he cannot sleep; the news carries him back to his childhood. Several years after the war he is eight years old, known as Totò, the son of a war widow, and he never misses a screening at the Cinema Paradiso, the town's movie house. The priest who owns it has the kisses cut out of the reels, and the audience boos when the films jump. Alfredo, the middle-aged projectionist, first keeps the boy at a distance, then lets him watch from the booth and teaches him to run the projector.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Cinema Paradiso's original Italian release ran 155 minutes and flopped at the box office, so it was shortened to 124 minutes for international release, and in that shorter form it became a success.
- After Berlin Film Festival artistic director Moritz de Hadeln made negative remarks about Cinema Paradiso in a La Stampa interview, unfavourably comparing it to Ettore Scola's Splendor, director Giuseppe Tornatore and producer Franco Cristaldi pulled the film from the festival.
- Cinema Paradiso won five of its 11 BAFTA nominations, among them Best Foreign Language Film, a record haul for a foreign language feature until All Quiet on the Western Front broke it in 2023.
- The Paradiso Cinema was built for the film on location at Via Nino Bixio in the village of Palazzo Adriano, 48 km south of Palermo; the town's square in the film is Piazza Umberto I, beside an octagonal Baroque fountain dating from 1608.
- After winning the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Cinema Paradiso was credited with reviving Italy's film industry, which went on to produce Mediterraneo in 1991 and Life Is Beautiful in 1997.
