Giovanna Gagliardo

Earning a Golden Palm nod at the Cannes Film Festival, this erotic drama uses the real-life Mayerling affair -- in which Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and his mistress committed suicide after being forbidden to wed -- as its jumping off point. In director Miklós Jancsó's reinterpretation, however, it's patriarchal tyranny that leads to tragedy as the young prince refuses to end his extended erotic idyll at his country estate. (Netflix)

This film was made during a time when Jancso was not allowed to make films in his native Hungary. In the middle of the crowd, while covering an Italian political protest by leftists, The Journalist (Monica Vitti), a pacifist, finds herself surrounded by a quite different group of people who jostle her, remove her recording equipment from her and set her car on fire. She complains to the police about this. (All Movie)

It is the 15th c. in Hungary. And young prince Gaspar (Laszlo Galffy) was sent off to Italy when he was just two years old, and now he has come back to his father's castle as a grown man, with a troupe of actors in tow. Once arrived at the castle, he discovers his mother is in a kind of trance state, reportedly drinking the blood of virgins to keep her forever young (just like the infamous Bloody Lady Elizabeth Bathory). (Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide)

The narrative concerns the barbaric exploits of Attila The Hun and yet none of the characters ever leave the remote seaside stretch of land on which the film is set or do much of anything - with the ensuing moralizing interrupted only by the occasional (and equally obscure) music-infused rites. (themoviedb)

In this costume epic, the last days of Julius Caesar are chronicled (www.mubi.com).

30 June 1990, in Rome Marie Christine is awakening to bring her two children, Pietro and Paolo, to her husband for the weekend. The Football World Cup takes place in Italy and Rome is flooded by supporters; the traffic is chaotic and the French Marie Christine, who works as a translator, finds a bag. The bag belongs to Miriam who has to leave the next day. Marie Christine decides to find her to return her passport but one Giuliano Ferrini tries to keep her from doing it. (imdb)