News > Italy Names Controversial 100 Film Treasures List

Written by David Morgan

Organizers of the Venice Film Festival unveiled a list of one hundred Italian films that are considered national treasures. Though these sorts of lists usually provoke mild pointless bickering ("How can you call that the best movie? Is that really better than this?") the Italian list is notably controversial because it fails to list a single film by a female director. Italian film producer Grazia Volpi aired her grievances by saying, "Where are Lina Wertmueller and Liliana Cavani?" A fair question to be sure.

Though the full list does not appear to be anywhere online yet, Variety reports that it includes "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," as well as less-conventiona entries such as Marco Ferreri's The Ape Woman about a woman affected with hypertrichosis. Fellini can also boast (from the grave) that he has the most films on the list of anyone (seven).