What Do You Know About Me?

A provocative, idiosyncratic and very entertaining documentary. Taking as its subject Italian cinema, past and present, it gives a particular and fascinating perspective on the political and industrial decisions which influenced Italian cinema in the postwar era, and features a range of remarkable archive footage, newsreel, clips from film masterpieces and great interviews with directors such as Fellini, that to most non-Italians will be completely unfamiliar. Yet, this is far more than another version of, say, Martin Scorsese’s Voyage to Italy because the director is truly interested in why Italian cinema is what it is now. To this end, he looks at the multiplex boom, developing technology, changing political regimes and film funding; and interviews just about every major Italian filmmaker currently working, including Francesca Comencini, Marco Bellocchio, Giuseppe Piccioni and Paolo Sorrentino. For anyone remotely interested in Italian cinema, this is a genuinely must-see experience, as it puts the whole Italian film industry in a new frame of reference, and even if you don’t necessarily agree with all of its ideas and suggestions, it is a remarkably clever and instructive experience. —bfi