Lists of 100 Italo films were announced as the cultural treasures. Unveiled in Rome on Thursday, but not without controversy, until producer Grazia Volpi, according to Variety, cried out, “Where are Lina Wertmueller and Liliana Cavani?”

Volpi has a point. These two Italo directors are awesome. I remember seeing one of Wertmueller films “La Fine del Mondo Nel Nostro Solito Letto in Una Notte Piena Di Pioggia” over 30 years ago. It was fabulous.  

Besides the obvious directors such as Federico Fellini’s “La dolce vita,” Roberto Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City,” Vittorio De Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief” and Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers,” the list includes less-conventional entries such as Marco Ferreri’s “The Ape Woman” about a woman affected with hypertrichosis.

As far as number of films, Fellini leads the list with seven, followed by Luchino Visconti with six, and De Sica, Francesco Rosi and Mario Monicelli with five works each. The list also includes four by Rossellini and three by Michelangelo Antonioni, reported by Variety. Venice Days aims to make these works more readily available to the country’s younger generations. Tough rights issues however still stand in the way.  

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