The Garden of the Finzi Continis ( Il giardino dei Finzi Contini ) ( Der Garten der Finzi Contini )

The Garden of the Finzi Continis (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: Il giardino dei Finzi Contini
Alternate Title: Der Garten der Finzi Contini
Screened, competed or awarded at:
BAFTA Awards
Berlin International Film Festival
David Donatello Awards
Oscar Academy Awards
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
Italian ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
90 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.85:1)

Special Features:
Cast/Crew Interview(s)
Interactive Menu
Making Of
Scene Access
Trailer(s)
Booklet
Remastered

Movie filmed in 1970 and produced in:
Germany ( Germany, Central Europe )
Italy ( Italy, Greece )

Directed By:
Vittorio De Sica

Written By:
Giorgio Bassani
Vittorio Bonicelli

Actors:
Lino Capolicchio ..... Giorgio
Dominique Sanda ..... Micòl Finzi Contini
Fabio Testi ..... Bruno Malnate
Romolo Valli ..... Giorgio's Father
Helmut Berger ..... Alberto
Camillo Cesarei ..... Micol's Father
Inna Alexeievna ..... Micol's Grandmother
Katina Morisani ..... Micol's Mother
Barbara Pilavin ..... Giorgio's Mother
Michael Berger ..... Ernesto
Ettore Geri ..... Young Micol
Raffaele Curi
Gianpaolo Duregon
Marcella Gentile
Cinzia Bruno

Synopsis:

Vittorio De Sica directs the lyrical war drama Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis), based on a book by Giorgio Bassani. In Ferrara, Italy, at the beginning of WWII, anti-Semitism is spreading. Mussolini has passed several laws that forbid Jews from going to public schools, joining the army, or marrying non-Jews. While many middle-class Jewish families flee the country, the Finzi-Continis believe it's safe inside their sprawling estate. As a wealthy, aristocratic Jewish family, they think their luxurious garden walls will protect them from fascism. Micol Finzi Contini (Dominique Sanda) and her brother (Helmut Berger) invite their Jewish friends to join them in the estate for parties, tennis, and games while the war ravages on. Middle-class Jew Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio) attends the parties with his friend Malnate (Fabio Testi). Giorgio and Micol are childhood sweethearts, but she begins to reject him in favor of Malnate. She also refuses to accept that there's a war going on. Eventually they can pretend no longer, and the war closes in on them. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1971.

The celebrated director of neoreliast masterpieces including Bicycle Thieves and Shoeshine, Vittorio De Sica once again stuck gold in 1970. After ten years of trying, he finally adapted Giorgio Bassani's celebrated novel to great acclaim and an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Set at the outbreak of War, De Sica's film tells the story of the Finzi-Continis, an aristocratic Jewish family protected by the walls of their idyllic estate. Whilst outside Mussolini bans Jews from tennis courts, the Finzi-Continis are not worried as they rally on their own, living in their dreamland. Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio) is the middle-class Jew in love with his childhood friend, Micol (Dominique Sanda) of the Finzi-Contini family, but she is in love with a gentile and wanting of experiences outlawed by the new government. With Giorgio's separation of Micol, De Sica tracks the loss of an idyllic way of life, from the tennis courts to the waiting rooms where Jews await transportation to the concentration camps. Arrow Academy presents Vittorio De Sica's autumnal masterpiece The Garden of the Finzi Contini on DVD for the first time in the UK.

In the late 1930s, in Ferrara, Italy, the Finzi-Contini are one of the leading families, wealthy, aristocratic, urbane; they are also Jewish. Their adult children, Micol and Alberto, gather a circle of friends for constant rounds of tennis and parties at their villa with its lovely grounds, keeping the rest of the world at bay. Into the circle steps Giorgio, a Jew from the middle class who falls in love with Micol. She seems to toy with him, and even makes love to one of his friends while she knows Giorgio is watching. While his love cannot seem to break through to her to draw her out of her garden idyll, the forces of politics close in.

This product was added to our catalog on Monday 12 September, 2011.

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