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Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains and veteran Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night topped the 68th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening.

The Eight Mountains won best film as well as best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.

Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, it stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as two men from different backgrounds who form a life-long bond during summers spent together as children in a remote mountain village.

The film world premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where it co-won the Jury Prize. Read the Deadline review here.

It is the second time in the history of the awards that a film by non-Italian directors has clinched the best film prize.

The last time was in 1971 when the Dino de Laurentiis-produced epic Waterloo by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk,...

Oscar Wilde may be the most famous person to face imprisonment for being gay, but he wasn’t the only one to suffer under an archaic legal system. Set in 1960s Italy, Gianni Amelio’s expansive historical drama “Lord of The Ants” uncovers the story of Aldo Braibanti, an Italian playwright, poet, and director who faced imprisonment for a consensual relationship with a younger student. “Lord of The Ants” holds a mirror to this shameful chapter in Italian history, painting

The film opens on an intimate moment between the handsome and dignified Aldo (Luigi Lo Cascio) and beautiful Ettore (Leonardo Maltese). Glowing with adoration, Aldo and Ettore recite poetry to each other in an outdoor Roman movie theater, ensconced in each other’s brilliance. At another table a kind journalist named Ennio (Elio Germano) observes them with sensitivity. “Braibanti, the myrmecologist,” he points out to his cousin Grazie (Sara Serraiocco...

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Gianni Amelio’s chronicle of the persecution of Aldo Braibanti, Lord of the Ants (Il Signore delle Formiche), doesn’t avoid the propensity of many Italian period dramas for dense verbosity, with characters spouting great gobs of manicured prose. That’s perhaps especially the case since the protagonist was a poet, playwright and philosopher. But Amelio’s classical approach, and the dignified refusal of martyrdom in Luigi Lo Cascio’s lead performance, make this account of Braibanti’s controversial imprisonment for homosexuality in 1968 after a four-year trial a quietly stirring portrait of institutional intolerance.

The Braibanti case drew international attention in the wake of his conviction due to the number of influential public figures who spoke out against the travesty of justice — Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alberto Moravia, Elsa Morante, Marco Bellocchio and Umberto Eco among them.

What’s striking now about the courtroom...

Myrmecology is a study of science that looks at the life, society and hierarchy of ants. Early Myrmecologists believed that ant culture was utopian and thought by studying them in encased ant farms, they could find solutions to human problems. However, Gianni Amelio’s Italian post-wwii drama The Lord of the Ants (Il Signore Delle Formiche) flips this idea around. It examines why strict societies foster cultures of oppression where everyone must play their role or be punished.

The screenplay by Amelio, Federico Fava and Edoardo Petti chooses its dialogue with precision. They want us to know they resent post-Mussolini Europe and how not just homosexuals but anyone on the margins is oppressed under fascist rule.

Venice Film Festival: Deadline’s Full Coverage

In 1965 Rome, Aldo Braibanti (Luigi Lo Cascio) is caught sleeping with his young lover Ettore (Leonardo Maltese). Their relationship started a year earlier in small-town Italy, where Aldo was directing a play.

Gianni Amelio was in his late sixties when he came out as gay a few years ago. The announcement preceded the release of his documentary “Happy to Be Different,” which worked toward an overriding sunniness in contemplating the trials and challenges of being gay in Italy at various points in the 20th century. In turning to a gay-themed narrative project, Amelio narrows the focus and dims the mood: “Lord of the Ants” takes as its subject the gay Italian author Aldo Braibanti, and the social and legal opposition he faced over his sexuality in mid-1960s Rome. Solemn, stately and perhaps a little stifled, it’s the kind of queer statement you might expect from a veteran filmmaker who wasn’t until relatively recently out and proud, and is rather poignant for that.

In a key scene, the middle-aged Braibanti (played with urbane grace by Luigi Lo Cascio) takes his...