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Matilda De Angelis is an Italian actress and singer. Her credits include the films Italian Race and Rose Island, and the television miniseries "The Undoing" and "The Law According to Lidia Poet." She started playing guitar and violin at the age of thirteen. She attended the Liceo Scientifico (science high school) "Enrico Fermi" in Bologna. In 2011, De Angelis began singing in the band Rumba De Bodas. The band also recorded an album, Karnaval Fou, which was released in 2014.

Blue-eyed and well-built Italian actor in international cinema, Franco Nero, was a painting photographer when he was discovered as an actor by director John Huston. He has since appeared in more than 200 movies around the world, working with Europe's top directors, such as Luis Buñuel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Claude Chabrol, Sergey Bondarchuk, Michael Cacoyannis, Elio Petri, Marco Bellocchio, Enzo G. Castellari, among many others.

Nero was born in Parma (Northern Italy), in the family of a strict police sergeant. His inclination for acting had already become obvious in his teenage years, when he began organizing and participating in student plays. After a short stint at a leading theater school, he moved to Rome, where he joined a small group of friends for the purpose of making documentaries. Still unsure of his ultimate vocation, he worked various jobs on the crew. He studied economics and trade in Milan University, and appeared in popular Italian photo-novels. This gave him a chance to gain a little role in Carlo Lizzani's La Celestina P... R... (1965).

A year later, the handsome face of Nero was noticed by Huston, who chose him for the role of "Abel" in The Bible in the Beginning... (1966) (aka La Bibbia). But success came after he got the role of the lonely gunfighter, dragging a coffin, in one of the best spaghetti-westerns; Sergio Corbucci's Django (1966). Nero then filmed a few other westerns of that style as Ferdinando Baldi's Texas, Adios (1966) and Lucio Fulci's Massacre Time (1966).

In 1967, Joshua Logan cast him in the film version of the musical Camelot (1967) (Warner Bros.), opposite Vanessa Redgrave, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe award. During filming of Camelot, he met actress Vanessa Redgrave, who become his long-time partner (they married decades later). He played with Catherine Deneuve in Luis Buñuel's Tristana (1970) and was directed by Sergey Bondarchuk in the war drama The Battle of Neretva (1969). Later, director Bondarchuk cast Nero for the role of famous American reporter "John Reed" in two-part "Krasnye kolokola II" (1982). In the late 60s and during the 70s, Nero played many different roles, but most of them connected with political and criminal genre, which criticized the Italian justice system.

In the early 80s, Nero was chosen for the role of the white ninja, "Cole", in Enter the Ninja (1981) and in 1990 as terrorist "Gen. Esperanza", opposite Bruce Willis, in Renny Harlin's Die Hard 2 (1990). He has also payed the roles of leading national heroes, such as "Garibaldi" (Italy), "Arpad" (Hungary), and "Banovic Strahinja" (Yugoslavia). In the USA, he has been in successful mini-series, such as "The Pirate" (Warner Bros), "The Last Days of Pompeii" (CBS), "Young Catherine" (TNT), "Bella Mafia" (CBS), "The Painted Lady", "Saint Augustine", and movies such as "The Legend of Valentino", "21 Hours to Munich", "Force 10 from Navarone", "Enter the Ninja", "The Versace Murder", and Letters to Juliet (2010).

He worked with the top European directors from Carlo Lizzani, Damiano Damiani, Luigi Zampa, Luis Buñuel, Elio Petri, Michael Cacoyannis, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Claude Chabrol, 'Vatroslav Mimica', Marco Bellocchio, etc. At the beginning of the 80s, he also began producing, writing and directing. Between films, he participates in various theatrical events.

Apart from his cinematographic work, Nero also works for charitable organizations. Over the last 45 years, he has been a benefactor of the Don Bosco orphanage in Tivoli. He has received many awards and, in 1992 for his artistic merits, a knighthood of the Italian Republic was bestowed on him by the President of Italy. In 2011, he was honored by Brunel University of London with the honorary degree of doctor of Letters honoris causa and, in Toronto, with a star on the Walk of Fame.

The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the devil herself said the priests who ran his school) - and the Gambettola farmhouse of his paternal grandmother would be remembered in several films. His traveling salesman father Urbano Fellini showed up in La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8½ (1963). His mother Ida Barbiani was from Rome and accompanied him there in 1939. He enrolled in the University of Rome. Intrigued by the image of reporters in American films, he tried out the real life role of journalist and caught the attention of several editors with his caricatures and cartoons and then started submitting articles. Several articles were recycled into a radio series about newlyweds "Cico and Pallina". Pallina was played by acting student Giulietta Masina, who became his real life wife from October 30, 1943, until his death half a century later. The young Fellini loved vaudeville and was befriended in 1940 by leading comedian Aldo Fabrizi. Roberto Rossellini wanted Fabrizi to play Don Pietro in Rome, Open City (1945) and made the contact through Fellini. Fellini worked on that film's script and is on the credits for Rosselini's Paisan (1946). On that film he wandered into the editing room, started observing how Italian films were made (a lot like the old silent films with an emphasis on visual effects, dialogue dubbed in later). Fellini in his mid-20s had found his life's work.

One of France's most beloved character stars from the 1950s through and including the 1980s was the Italian-born Lino Ventura. Born Angiolino Joseph Pascal Ventura to Giovanni Ventura and Luisa Borrini, on July 14, 1919, in Parma (northern) Italy, young Lino moved with his family at a young age to Paris, where he grew up. A school dropout at age eight, Lino drifted from job to job (mechanic's apprentice, etc.), unable to decide on what to do for a living. Marrying in 1942 at age 23, he and wife Odette Ventura had four children.

Lino finally found a career calling as a Greek/Roman-styled wrestler and went on to become a professional European champion in 1950. He was forced to abandon this sporting life, however, after incurring a serious injury in the ring. Looking for gangster types for his next film, director Jacques Becker gave the inexperienced 34-year-old his first acting job as bad guy support to star Jean Gabin in the crime thriller Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) [Grisbi]. Gabin was impressed and did more than just encourage Lino to pursue acting as a living. Lino went on to appear with Gabin in several of the star's subsequent movies, often playing a gangster, including Razzia (1955) [Razzia], Crime and Punishment (1956), Speaking of Murder (1957) [Crime and Punishment] and Inspector Maigret (1958) [Inspector Maigret].

A tough, brutish, burly-framed presence, Lino came into his own as a tough-nut character star in the 1960s playing both sides of the moral fence. Adept in both light comedy and dark-edged drama, he appeared in scores of films now considered classic French cinema. His homely, craggy-looking mug took the form of various criminals types as in Second Wind (1966) [Second Breath] and Happy New Year (1973) [Happy New Year], as well as dogged, good-guy inspectors in The French Detective (1975) [The French Detective], Illustrious Corpses (1976) [Illustrious Corpses'], and The Grilling (1981). Lino bore a patented weight-of-the-world-on-his-shoulders countenance that audiences sympathized with, even when playing the arch-villain. Over the course of three decades he built up an impressive gallery of blue-collar protagonists. Not to be missed are his embittered, vengeful husband in Witness in the City (1959) [Witness in the City]; corrupt police chief Tiger Brown in Three Penny Opera (1963) [The Threepenny Opera]; a WWII French Resistance fighter in Army of Shadows (1969) [Army in the Shadows]; and Mafia boss Vito Genovese in Charles Bronson's The Valachi Papers (1972), among many, many others. Toward the end of his career he played Jean Valjean in a French production of Les Misérables (1982) for which he received a Cesar award nomination (i.e, the French "Oscar"). He performed practically until the time of his fatal heart attack in 1987 at age 68 in his beloved France. Survivors included his wife of 45 years and children. Daughter Mylene died in a plane crash in 1998 and wife Odette died in 2013.

Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian director whose films were known for their colorful visual style, was born in Parma, Italy. He attended Rome University and became famous as a poet. He served as assistant director for Pier Paolo Pasolini in the film Accattone (1961) and directed The Grim Reaper (1962). His second film, Before the Revolution (1964), which was released in 1971, received an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay. Bertolucci also received an Academy Award nomination as best director for Last Tango in Paris (1972), and the best director and best screenplay for the film The Last Emperor (1987), which walked away with nine Academy Awards.

Serena Grandi was born on 23 March 1958 in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Great Beauty (2013), Miranda (1985) and Donne sottotetto (Centro storico) (1992). She was previously married to Beppe Ercole.

Pier Paolo Pasolini achieved fame and notoriety long before he entered the film industry. A published poet at 19, he had already written numerous novels and essays before his first screenplay in 1954. His first film Accattone (1961) was based on his own novel and its violent depiction of the life of a pimp in the slums of Rome caused a sensation. He was arrested in 1962 when his contribution to the portmanteau film Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963) was considered blasphemous and given a suspended sentence. It might have been expected that his next film, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) (The Gospel According to St. Matthew), which presented the Biblical story in a totally realistic, stripped-down style, would cause a similar fuss but, in fact, it was rapturously acclaimed as one of the few honest portrayals of Christ on screen. Its original Italian title pointedly omitted the Saint in St. Matthew). Pasolini's film career would then alternate distinctly personal and often scandalously erotic adaptations of classic literary texts: Oedipus Rex (1967) (Oedipus Rex); The Decameron (1971); The Canterbury Tales (1972) (The Canterbury Tales); Arabian Nights (1974) (Arabian Nights), with his own more personal projects, expressing his controversial views on Marxism, atheism, fascism and homosexuality, notably Teorema (1968) (Theorem), Pigsty and the notorious Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), a relentlessly grim fusion of Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy with the 'Marquis de Sade' which was banned in Italy and many other countries for several years. Pasolini was murdered in still-mysterious circumstances shortly after completing the film.

Together with Fellini, Bergman and Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni is credited with defining the modern art film. And yet Antonioni's cinema is also recognized today for defying any easy categorization, with his films ultimately seeming to belong to their own distinctive genre. Indeed, the difficulty of precisely describing their category is itself the very quintessence of Antonioni's films. Among the most-cited contributions of Antonioni's cinema are their striking descriptions of that unique strain of post-boom ennui everywhere apparent in the transformed life and leisure habits of the Italian middle and upper classes. Detecting profound technological, political and psychological shifts at work in post-WWII Italy, Antonioni set out to explore the ambiguities of a suddenly alienated and dislocated Italy, not simply through his oblique style of narrative and characters, nor through any overt political messaging, but instead by tearing asunder the traditional boundaries of cinematic narrative in order to explore an ever shifting internal landscape expressed through architecture, urban space and the sculptural, shaping presence of objects, shapes and emotions invented by camera movement and depth of focus.

Antonioni deftly manipulates the quieter, indirect edges of cinematic structure, often so discretely that his existential puzzles are felt before they can be intellectualized. The negative space is as prominent as the positive, silence as loud as noise, absence as palpable as presence, and passivity as driving a force as direct action. Transgressing unspoken cinematic laws, Antonioni frequently focuses on female protagonists while refusing to sentimentalize or morally judge his characters and placing them on equal footing with the other elements within his total dynamic system, like sounds or set pieces. And he violates spoken rules with unconventional cutting techniques, fractured spatial and temporal continuity, and a camera that insistently lingers in melancholy pauses, long after the actors depart, as if drifting just behind an equally distracted, dissipating narrative. Leaving questions unanswered and plot points irresolute, dispensing with exposition, suspense, sentimentality and other cinematic security blankets, Antonioni releases the viewer into a gorgeous, densely layered fog to contemplate and wrestle with his characters' imprecise quandaries and endless possibilities. Culminating in tour de force endings that often reframe the narrative in a daring, parting act of deconstruction, Antonioni's rigorously formal, yet open compositions allow his great, unwieldy questions to spill over into the world outside the cinema and outside of time.

Born into a middle-class family in the northern Italian town of Ferrara, Antonioni studied economics at the University of Bologna where he also co-founded the university's theatrical troupe. While dedicating himself to painting, writing film reviews, working in financial positions and in different capacities on film productions, Antonioni suffered a few false starts before expressing his unique directorial vision and voice in his first realized short film, Gente del Po, a moving portrait of fisherman in the misty Po Valley where he was raised. Uncomfortable with the neo-realist thrust of Italian cinema, Antonioni directed a series of eccentric and oblique documentary shorts that, in retrospect, reveal his desire to investigate the psyche's mysterious interiors. In his first fictional feature, Story of a Love Affair, Antonioni immediately subtly challenged traditional plot and audience expectation in ways that anticipate the formal and emotional expressionist dynamic that would fully flower within the groundbreaking L'Avventura (1960).

Reversing its raucous 1960 premiere to an infuriated Cannes audience, L'Avventura was rapturously lauded by fellow artists and filmmakers and awarded a special Jury Prize "for its remarkable contribution toward the search for a new cinematic language." It also presented the controlled ambivalence of Monica Vitti, who would become his partner, muse and psychological constant throughout his famed trilogy of L'Avventura, La Notte (1961) and L'Eclisse (1962) in addition to the exquisite Red Desert (1964), a film that marked another significant shift toward expressive color, male leads and working with soft focus and faster cuts. After the phenomenal commercial success of the MGM-produced Blow-Up (1966), Antonioni was devastated by the anti-climactic box office disaster of Zabriskie Point (1970) and returned to documentary. Invited to make Chung Kuo China by the Chinese government, Antonioni delivered a mesmerizing yet unsentimental four-hour tour of China which was vehemently rejected by its solicitors. A few years later, Antonioni returned to fictional form in his last masterpiece, The Passenger (1975), an enigmatic fable of vaporous identity that offers a bold companion piece to L'Avventura. Aside from the thematically retrospective Identification of a Woman (1982) and a period film made for television, The Mystery of Oberwald (1980) in which he conducted unusual experiments with color and video, Antonioni closed out his career with mostly short films, many of which were made after he suffered a stroke in 1985.

Tremendously influential yet largely taken for granted, Antonioni made difficult, abstract cinema mainstream. Embracing an anarchic geometry, Antonioni turned the architecture of narrative filmmaking inside-out in the most eloquent way possible, with many of his iconic scenes eternally preserved in the depths of the cinema's psyche. Observing modern maladies without judgment - sexism, dissolution of family and tradition, ecological/technological quandaries and the eternal questions of our place in the cosmos - Antonioni's prescience continues to resonate deeply as we find our way in the quickly moving fog.

Alessandro Bedetti was born on 25 October 2002 in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. He is an actor, known for The Tearsmith (2024), Headshot (2023) and Hai mai avuto paura? (2023).

Rossano Brazzi was an Italian stage and film actor. He was married to Lydia Brazzi until her death, and to Ilse Fischer, his second wife, until his death.

He's most familiar to English-speaking audiences for his role as Emile De Becque in South Pacific (1958), playing opposite Mitzi Gaynor.

He died in Rome of complications following a neural virus, on December 24, 1994.

Marco Bellocchio is one of the most consistent and most adventurous of today's Italian directors-an achievement all the more remarkable given that he made his feature debut almost fifty years ago. Over those years, he has amassed a body of films that encompasses a large number of original screenplays, adaptations of the likes of Pirandello and Kleist and personal, quasi-autobiographical work. What unifies these films is the beauty and originality of Bellocchio's images and his unceasing quest to understand the place of the individual in contemporary Italy and contemporary cinema. After making a few shorts, Bellocchio announced himself with his ferocious first feature, the acclaimed Fists in the Pocket (1965). This caustic and anarchic look at an extremely troubled family launched him instantly to the first ranks of the Italian film scene, alongside Antonioni, Pasolini and Bertolucci. For the next several years, films such as China Is Near (1967) and In the Name of the Father (1971) found Bellocchio examining the turbulent world of leftist politics and revolutionary dreams with an eye both sympathetic and jaundiced. During the 1980s and 1990s, under the spell of unorthodox-and, to some, controversial-psychoanalyst Massimo Fagioli, Bellocchio's emphasis turned to examining the interweaving of family dynamics and sexual desire as they produce and undermine personal identities. Films such as A Leap in the Dark (1980) and Devil in the Flesh (1986) create complex allegories of an audacious originality. More recently, Bellocchio has turned to more straightforward narratives in a number of films that examine Italy's recent past and its present, from The Nanny (1999) to one of his most recent works, Dormant Beauty (2012). Shifting brilliantly from realist fiction to archival footage to the imagery of dream or fantasy, all within a single film, this recent period has returned Bellocchio to the forefront of contemporary cinema, while combining the lessons learned from both the previous political and allegorical work. What has remained constant is Bellocchio's searching critique of the institutions that control individuals and organize the flow of power: the army, political parties, schools, the state and its laws, the Church, and the family.

Raffaella Carrà was born June 18, 1943 in Bologna, Italy. She was very famous in Italy, Spain and Latin America. She was a show-woman: Raffaella introduced, entertained, interviewed, danced, sang and, of course, was an actress. Highly unlikely she was already a household name at the time of the Saturday night TV variety shows, when 'Signorina Pelloni' from Bologna, fresh from the beaches of the Adriatic and with a new stage name first coyly revealed her perfect navel and made quiet family men break out in a cold sweat; when her, far from skinny, legs gave some consolation to housewives struggling with the latest point-based diet; when her winning smile made the comic spells of Maga Maghella credible to the little ones. Carràmba che sorpresa!, ¡Hola Raffaella!, Canzonissima, En casa con R affaella, Pronto... Raffaella?, A las 8 con Raffaella, Ma che sera, La hora de Raffaella Carrà, Domenica in... and more, are some variety shows' titles of her programs in Spain and in Italy.

She won a beauty pageant and attended il Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (The Center for Experimental Cinematography). In 1956, she received an offer to go to Hollywood and attend the Actor's Studio but didn't take the offer for undisclosed reasons.

She began her film career at the age of 15 with a role in the film I pinguini ci guardano (1955) (The Penguins Watch Us) in which the animals at the zoo watched the humans around them and cultivated some very interesting thoughts. Many sources, however, list her first film as Mogli pericolose (1958). She is uncredited in this comedy which was directed by Luigi Comencini.

Neri was also much in demand for erotic films. She played Zoe, in Jesús Franco's 99 Women (1969), a movie about women in prison who must turn to each other for comfort while dealing with a sadistic warden. In 1971 she was Eleanor Stuart, Farley Granger's 'wife' in Amuck! (1972).

Nicoletta Braschi was born on 19 April 1960 in Cesena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She is an actress and producer, known for Life Is Beautiful (1997), Happy as Lazzaro (2018) and Johnny Stecchino (1991). She has been married to Roberto Benigni since December 1991.

Born in San Giorgio di Piano, Giulietta Masina spent part of her teenage years living with a widowed aunt in Rome, where she cultivated a passion for the theater and studied for a degree in Philosophy. She began her career on the radio with the program "Terzoglio" (1942), about the adventures of newlyweds Cico and Pallina from scripts written by Federico Fellini. The series brought her great success. The following year she married Fellini and became the inspirational muse for many of his films.

She made her cinema debut in Without Pity (1948), directed by Alberto Lattuada, but really established her reputation with her next few films: Behind Closed Shutters (1951), directed by Luigi Comencini, Variety Lights (1950), which also marked Fellini's debut as director (the film credits both Fellini and Lattuada); and Europe '51 (1952), directed by Roberto Rossellini. Her artistic partnership with her husband really took off with the Oscar-winning La Strada (1954), followed by The Swindle (1955) and the widely acclaimed Nights of Cabiria (1957), which again won an Oscar and brought her the award for Best Female Performance at the Cannes Film Festival. Over the following years she played many memorable roles in such films as Fortunella (1958), directed by Eduardo De Filippo; ...and the Wild Wild Women (1959), directed by Renato Castellani; and later in Juliet of the Spirits (1965) and Ginger & Fred (1986), both directed by Fellini.

From 1966 to 1969 she hosted the immensely popular radio show "Lettere aperte a Giulietta Masina" and starred in the television series Eleonora (1973), by Tullio Pinelli, directed by Silverio Blasi, and Camilla (1976), directed by Sandro Bolchi, based on the novel by Fausta Cialente, "Un inverno freddissimo" (1966).

She died in Rome in 1994, just a few months after the death of her husband.

Stefano Accorsi got his diploma from the School of Theater in Bologna. He divides his time between theater, cinema, and television. Currently he is the Artistic Director of the Theater Foundation of Tuscany. He was appointed Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Ministry of Culture. His movies include: Jack Frusciante è uscito dal gruppo (Jack Frusciante Has Left the Band) by Enza Negroni, I piccoli maestri (Little Teachers) by Daniele Luchetti, Ormai è fatta! (Outlaw) by Enzo Monteleone (Grolla d'Oro Award), Un uomo perbene (A Respectable Man) by Maurizio Zaccaro (Grolla d'Oro), Capitaes de Abril (April Captains) by Maria de Medeiros, Come quando fuori piove by Mario Monicelli, Radiofreccia (Radio Arrow) and Made in Italy by Luciano Ligabue (David di Donatello, Amidei Award and Ciak d'Oro), L'ultimo bacio (The Last Kiss), Baciami ancora (Kiss Me Again) and A casa tutti bene (There's No Place like Home) by Gabriele Muccino, Saturno contro (Saturn in Opposition), Le fate ignoranti (The Ignorant Fairies) and La Dea Fortuna (The Goddess of Fortune) by Ferzan Ozpetek (Nastro d'Argento, Ciak d'Oro and Globo d'Oro from the foreign press in Italy), La stanza del figlio (The Son's Room) by Nanni Moretti, Santa Maradona by Marco Ponti, Romanzo criminale (Crime Novel) and Un viaggio chiamato amore (A Scandalous Journey / A Journey Called Love) by Michele Placido (Coppa Volpi Best Actor at the 59th Venice Film Festival), Tous le soleils by Philippe Claudel, Veloce come il vento (Italian Race) by Matteo Rovere (David di Donatello, Nastro d'Argento, 2016 FICE Award Actor of the Year), Fortunata directed by Sergio Castellitto (Ciak d'Oro Best Actor). He debuted in directing with the short film Io non ti conosco, produced by Yoox Group that he also acted in (2014 Nastro d'Argento Best NewDirector). For Sky Italia, the series 1992 and the sequels 1993 and 1994 directed by Giuseppe Gagliardi, of which he is the creator and actor. Also for Sky in association with HBO, The Young Pope by Paolo Sorrentino.

Laura Pausini is one of the most successful and admired Italian artist around the world, with over 70 million albums sold, several songs performed in six languages, and multiple awards under her belt including a GRAMMY - becoming the first Italian female artist to win this award - four Latin Grammys, a Golden Globe for "Best Original Song", and an Oscar nomination in 2021, to name a few. The award-winning international recording artist, singer-songwriter, and producer made her debut in Italy when winning the prestigious Sanremo Festival in 1993 at the age of 18. She went on to successfully release thirteen studio albums worldwide, both in Italian and Spanish versions, with songs performed in six languages, including English. Throughout her career, Laura Pausini has performed and collaborated with some of the most recognized music artists in the world such as Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, Michael Bublé, Ray Charles, Phil Collins, Shakira, Mariah Carey, Charles Aznavour, Marc Anthony, Ricky Martin, Kylie Minogue, Alejandro Sanz, Céline Dion and Michael Jackson, among others. In addition, Madonna wrote a song for her in 2004. She has toured and performed in some of the most prestigious stages in the world, such as Madison Square Garden and City Music Hall in New York, the Royal Albert Hall in London, the San Siro Stadium in Milan (she was the first female artist to have performed a sold-out concert at this venue), the Circus Maximus in Rome and the Olympia in Paris. Her massive success in music crossed over TV as well when she became one of the coaches and winner of Spain's and Mexico's edition of La Voz (The Voice). She was also one of the judges responsible for forming the band CNCO for La Banda, the Latin talent show created by Simon Cowell, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination. In addition, she won Spain's "XFactor" with her pupil Pol Granch, and also created and co-wrote two shows for Italian TV: "Stasera Laura" and "Laura e Paola". Laura has dedicated her life to helping others especially when it comes to children in need. She became a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN World Food Programme, and contributed to fundraising events, concerts, and projects in support of various causes. Among the causes are Chime For Change, Save the Children, Croce Rossa Italiana, ILoveBeirut, OHM Live, One Humanity Live, and International Peace Honors - a global event created by Peace Tech Lab, to recognize and celebrate the commitment of the most influential international activist of our period that were on the front line to transmit messages of peace for a better future - are included. Further fundraising events are the Music Against Child Labour Competition, Amiche per l'Abruzzo, which was a fundraising concert for the victims of the earthquake in the Abruzzo Italian region, and Voices Unidas for Chile. Moreover, she participated in the recording of "Todo para ti", a song written and performed by Michael Jackson for the families of the victims of the September 11th attacks in New York. Laura's latest collaboration in 2020 was with the acclaimed singer-songwriter Diane Warren with the song "Io Sì (Seen)", the main track of Netflix's film "The Life Ahead", which marked the return to the screen of the beloved Italian actress Sophia Loren. "Io Si" went on to receive several awards in 2021 including a Golden Globe in the Best Original Song category, a Hollywood Music in Media Awards in the Best Outstanding Song - Feature Film category, a Satellite Award, a Nastri d'argento, and a nomination to the Oscars, Laura's first-ever nomination to the prestigious award.

Benjamin Mascolo was born on 20 June 1993 in Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. He is an actor, known for Time Is Up (2021), Game of Love (2022) and Ben: Respira.

Born in Bologna, she is an actress and photographer. She has acted, among others, for Michelangelo Antonioni, Liliana Cavani, Marco Tullio Giordana, Gus Van Sant, and Mia Handsen-Love. In 2008 she began to exhibit her photography; in 2011 she was at the Biennale di Venezia, in 2014 her first solo exhibit in Tokyo. She debuted as a director In 2000 with the short Per sempre, which was in competition at the 57a Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia, and won the Nastro d'Argento Prize.

Gabriele Tinti was born on 22 August 1932 in Molinella, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. He was an actor, known for Endgame - Bronx lotta finale (1983), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) and Le sette spade del vendicatore (1962). He was married to Laura Gemser and Norma Bengell. He died on 12 November 1991 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Liliana Cavani was born on 12 January 1933 in Carpi, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She is a director and writer, known for L'ospite (1971), Dove siete? Io sono qui (1993) and The Night Porter (1974).

Full name - Nicholetta Rangoni Machiavelli. The first role in a long movie was in Luigi Zampa's Una questione d'onore (1966), produced in 1965. In 1969, was nominated as best actress for the German Academy Award for her role of Scarabea in the film Scarabea - wieviel Erde braucht der Mensch? (1969).

Machiavelli played in film sketches and movies with many of the good Italian and French directors of her time: Alberto Lattuada, Liliana Cavani, Carlo Lizzani, Dino Risi, Andrzej Zoulawski, Georges Lautner.

In 1978 she became a Rajneeshee, a follower of the spiritual teacher Rajneesh, later known as Osho, and after two more films, she stopped her career and moved to Rajnespuram (Wasco County, Oregon, USA).

In 1985 she settled in Seattle (USA), where she was an interpreter and Italian language teacher at the University of Washington. Occasionally worked as a guide on inclusive tours in her home country.

She passed away on November 15, 2015 in Seattle, Washington, USA.

Isabella Fogliazza in art Isabella Ferrari, was born in Ponte Dell'Olio. She debut in 1982 with the film "Sapore di Mare" directed by Carlo Vanzina and in 1983 in "Sapore di Mare 2", so her career took off and started participate in many cult comedies of the 80s such as: "Appuntamento a Liverpool" , "Chewingum" , "Il Ragazzo del Poni Express". In 1989 she starred in the film "Willi Signori e Vengo da lontano" directed by Francesco Nuti, in 1995 she worked on "Cronaca di un amore violato" directed by Giacomo Battiato, inspire by the book by Anna Maria Pellegrino "Diario di uno stupratore". The next year she works with Sergio Castellitto in "Hotel di Paura". In 1997 she was engaged by a French production in Alexandre Arcady's film "K" An important time in her artistic career is represented by "Romanzo di un Giovane Povero" with Alberto Sordi and directed by Ettore Scola, she won the Coppa Volpi Award (Venice International Film Festival) for best supporting actress. In 1998 she was in an Italian-French Production "Dolce far Niente", a comedy set in the 1800s followed by "Vajont" and "La lingua del Santo " directed by Carlo Mazzacurati. Throughout the years she participated as a protagonist in the television series "Distretto di Polizia", where she plays the police commissioner Giovanna Scalise, directed by her husband Renato De Maria and Antonello Grimaldi and then the mini-series "Liberi di Giocare", beside Pierfrancesco Favino. In 2005 she is the protagonist in the movie "Amatemi" by Renato de Maria and "Arrivederci Amore ciao" by Michele Soavi. She starred in the film "Vite Sospese" by Marco Turco, "Il Seme della Discordia" by Pappi Corsicato, "Saturno Contro" and "Un giorno Perfetto" by Ferzan Ozpetek (where she won the Pasinetti Award for the best actress), "Due partite" by Enzo Monteleone and then in the film "Caos Calmo" by Antonello Grimaldi. In 2006 she is in theaters with "Due Partite" by Cristina Comencini and "Il Catalogo" with Ennio Fantastichini, by Jean Claude Carriere and directed by Valerio Binasco. She participated in the show "Anestesia Totale" with Marco Travaglio and always with the latter he goes on stage in Italian theaters with "È Stato la Mafia". She had a cameo in the movie "To Rome with Love" by Woody Allen. In 2010 she returns to television with the Italian-German miniseries "Nel Bianco" based on the novel by Ken Follett and in the tv-film "Storia di Laura" by Andrea Porporati. In 2013 she is directed by Paolo Sorrentino in the Oscar-winning film "The Great Beauty". She also appears in Antonio Morabito's movie "Il Venditore di Medicine" and in the following year is one of the protagonists in Renato de Maria's movie "La Vita Oscena", presented at the International Venice Film Festival in the Horizons category. In 2017 she works again with Ferzan Ozpetek in "Napoli Velata", and then appears in "In Viaggio con Adele" by Alessandro Capitani and "Euphoria" by Valeria Golino. From 2018-2020 she is in the Netflix series "Baby" directed by Andrea De Sica, Anna Negri and Letizia Lamartire. She also appears in "Sotto I l Sole di Riccione" by Antonio Usbergo and Niccolò Celaia. In 2022 she appears in "La Mia Ombra è Tua" by Eugenio Cappuccio, "Sotto I l Sole di Amalfi" by Martina Pastori and Renato de Maria's movie "Rapiniamo I l Duce". In 2023 she worked on the tv series "Alfonso" by Eros Puglielli

Luciano Pavarotti was a best-selling classical singer and humanitarian known for his most original and popular performances with the 'Three Tenors' and 'Pavarotti & Friends'.

He was born on October 12, 1935, in Modena, Emilia-Romagna, in Northern Italy. He was the first child and only son of two children in the family of a baker. His father, Fernando Pavarotti, was a gifted amateur tenor, who instilled a love for music and singing in young Luciano. His mother, Adele Venturi, worked at the local cigar factory. Young Pavarotti showed many talents. He first sang with his father in the Corale Rossi, a male choir in Modena, and won the first prize in an international choir competition in Wales, UK. He also played soccer as a goalkeeper for his town's junior team.

In 1954, at the age of 19, Pavarotti decided to make a career as a professional opera singer. He took serious study with professional tenor Arrio Pola, who discovered that Pavarotti had perfect pitch, and offered to teach him for free. After six years of studies, he had only a few performances in small towns without pay. At that time Pavarotti supported himself working as a part-time school teacher and later an insurance salesman. In 1961 he married his girlfriend, singer Adua Veroni, and the couple had three daughters.

Pavarotti made his operatic debut on April 29, 1961, as Rodolfo in La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini, at the opera house in Reggio Emilia. In the following years he relied on the professional advise from tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano, who prevented Pavarotti from appearances when his voice was not ready yet. Eventually Pavarotti stepped in for Di Stefano in 1963, at the Royal Opera House in London as 'Rodolfo' in La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini, making his international debut. That same year he met soprano Joan Sutherland and the two began one of the most legendary partnerships in vocal history; Pavarotti made his American debut opposite Sutherland in February of 1965, at the Miami Opera.

Pavarotti was blessed with a voice of rare range, beauty and clarity, which was best during the 60s, 70s and 80s. In 1966 he became the first opera tenor to hit all nine "high C's" with his full voice in the aria 'Quel destin' in 'La Fille du Regiment' (aka.. The Daughter of the Regiment) by Gaetano Donizetti. He repeated this feat in his legendary 1972 Met performance and was nicknamed "King of the High C's" in rave reviews. Pavarotti's popularity was arguably bigger than that of any other living tenor in the world. His 1993 live performance in New York's Central Park was attended by 500,000 fans while millions watched it on television. During the 1990s and 2000s Pavarotti was still showing the ability to deliver his clear ringing tone in the higher register, albeit in fewer performances.

Luciano Pavarotti was also known for his humanitarian work. He was the founder and host of the 'Pavarotti & Friends' annual charity concerts and related activities in Modena, Italy. There he sang with international stars of all styles to raise funds for several worthy UN causes. Pavarotti sang with Bono and U2 in the 1995 song Miss Sarajevo and raised $1,500,000 in his charity project 'Concert for Bosnia'. He also established and financed the Pavarotti Music Center in Bosnia, and raised funds in charity concerts for refugees from Afghanistan and Kosovo. Pavarotti made two Guinness World Records: one was for receiving the most curtain calls at 165; and the other was for the best selling classical album of 'The Three Tenors in Concert' with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras.

In March 2004 Pavarotti gave his last performance in an opera as the painter Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's 'Tosca' at the New York Metropolitan Opera. In 2005 Luciano Pavarotti started a 40 city farewell tour. He sang his signature aria 'Nessun Dorma' from 'Turandot' by Giacomo Puccini, at the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin, Italy, on February 10, 2006. Pavarotti survived an emergency surgery for pancreatic cancer. His remaining appearances for 2006 had to be canceled. However, his management anticipated that his farewell tour would resume in 2007.

Luciano Pavarotti died of kidney failure on September 6, 2007, at his home in Modena, Italy, surrounded by his family. He was laid to rest with his parents in the family tomb in Montale Rangone cemetery near Modena. His funeral ceremony was an international event attended by celebrities and over fifty thousand music lovers from all over the world.

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born in Predappio, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. He was the son of Alessandro Mussolini, a socialist, and Rosa Maltoni, a devout Catholic schoolteacher. In 1915, Mussolini married Donna Rachele Guidi. Together, they had five children. On October 31, 1922, at the age of 39, Mussolini became the Prime Minister of Italy. He was removed from power and placed under arrest by order of King Victor Emmanuel III in July 1943, but two months later was rescued by the Germans and installed as the puppet leader of a German client state, the Italian Social Republic. On April 28, 1945, Mussolini was shot dead by Italian Communists in Giulino di Mezzegra, Lombardy, Italy and his corpse was hung by its feet. He was 61 years old. In 1957, his remains were allowed to be interred in the Mussolini family crypt in his home town of Predappio. His tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for neo-fascists and the anniversary of his death is marked by neo-fascist rallies.