Giunti Odeon welcomes Sofia Coppola (via live stream) to discuss the documentary dedicated to her most famous film. In 2005, Sofia Coppola shot her third feature film, Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman, at the Palace of Versailles, having secured a filming permit never before granted to any production. Her mother, the acclaimed documentary filmmaker Eleanor Coppola, accompanied her on set, filming around eighty hours of footage chronicling her daughter’s journey during the making of the film. This year, to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of Marie Antoinette and to fulfil her mother’s wish, Sofia Coppola has edited this previously unseen material. Making Marie Antoinette chronicles the craftsmanship and attention to detail that brought the film to life, follows the legendary costume designer Milena Canonero at work, and offers a glimpse into what it meant to be a young female director at that time. The result is a fascinating insight into the creative process behind a landmark film and, at the same time, a surprisingly intimate family portrait.

One of the greatest cult classics in the history of cinema returns to the big screen at Giunti Odeon: The Matrix, written and directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski in 1999 and winner of four Academy Awards®. Set in a dystopian future and featuring a cyberpunk aesthetic, the film imagines a world in which machines have subjugated humanity. When Morpheus offers Neo the chance to discover the truth, he presents him with an irreversible choice that has become legendary and entered everyday language: to take the blue pill and continue living in ignorance, or to choose the red pill and face reality, however difficult it may be to accept. Having made his choice, Neo discovers the truth: human beings lie in artificial capsules, immersed in a collective simulation called the Matrix, whilst their bodies are exploited by the machines as a source of energy.  In this sense, The Matrix represents a philosophical exploration in which the distinction between human and machine blurs: an open-ended question about who we are when what we call ‘reality’ may be nothing more than a construct of consciousness. Thus, having had the nature of the world in which he lives revealed to him, Neo embarks on a training programme that will lead him to master the rules of the simulation and join the rebels led by Morpheus in their struggle to free humanity from the control of the machines. The soundtrack has become a landmark and blends the orchestral scores by composer Don Davis with a selection of famous tracks. 

In the Halloween Week, one of the greatest cult classics in the history of cinema returns to Giunti Odeon: The Rocky Horror Picture Show. An irreverent ode to sexual pleasures of every kind, it is a variety show that brings together aliens in fancy dress and haunted houses, all underpinned by a powerful kitsch-rock soundtrack, with a memorable Susan Sarandon unleashing the senses of a trembling American bride. On a dark and stormy night, the betrothed couple Brad and Janet – two well-to-do young people from the American heartland – get lost in a wood after their car breaks down and decide to seek help at the nearest dwelling: a rather unsettling-looking castle about to host the Annual Transylvanian Convention. Once inside, they end up as hostages of the ambiguous Frank-N-Furter (and his extravagant entourage) and discover that the sweet-natured transvestite is in the midst of an experiment: bringing the handsome and muscular Rocky Horror to life to turn him into his very own sex toy.

To celebrate Halloween Week, there’s a big horror night at Giunti Odeon featuring a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous masterpiece: Psycho. The film stars Anthony Perkins as the tormented Norman Bates, taxidermist and voyeur, whose dark old house and adjacent motel are not exactly the place to spend a quiet evening. No one knows this better than Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), the unfortunate client whose journey ends in the infamous shower scene, 45 of the most famous seconds in film history. Looking for her will be a private investigator and Marion's sister (Vera Miles). Hitchcock plays masterfully with the audience's expectations and emotions: horror and suspense mount until the face of the mysterious killer is finally revealed. 

One of the most famous classics of horror cinema, directed by the great Francis Ford Coppola and featuring a stellar cast, returns to the big screen at the Giunti Odeon as part of Halloween Week. The film is not as faithful to Stoker’s novel as the title might suggest. It is, however, the story of a young English archivist who travels to Transylvania at the request of Count Dracula. After meeting this unsettling figure, the young man is ensnared by a group of young women who are the Count’s followers. Meanwhile, the Count travels to England to see the librarian’s fiancée; having seen her portrait, he recognises in her the reincarnation of the woman he loved 400 years earlier, whose death had caused his damnation. The intervention of a curious character – part sorcerer, part scientist – who has long been hunting the great vampire, puts an end to Dracula’s malevolent reign and frees the young woman, returning her to the archivist, who had in the meantime fled the Count’s castle.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of its cinema release, one of the greatest cult classics of 1990s cinema returns to the big screen at the Giunti Odeon: Trainspotting, directed by Danny Boyle. This anniversary provides the perfect opportunity to bring back to the big screen the story of Mark Renton and the group of friends with whom he shares a life caught between addiction, excess and attempts to escape. A film which, ever since its release in 1996, has forged its own identity through a direct visual style, an immersive narrative and a soundtrack that has become an integral part of its success. Set in 1990s Scotland, Trainspotting brings to the screen the novel of the same name published by Irvine Welsh in 1993. At the heart of the plot is Mark Renton, played by Ewan McGregor, alongside Begbie, Spud, Sick Boy and Tommy – characters bound by a friendship that develops within an environment marked by precariousness and addiction. Amidst relapses and increasingly extreme situations, Mark tries to distance himself from that toxic reality. It is precisely this tension between the desire to change his life and the impossibility of completely freeing himself from his environment that becomes one of the film’s central themes.

The most famous film in the history of Italian cinema returns to the big screen at Giunti Odeon, in a restored version with English subtitles: one of Federico Fellini's masterpieces, La dolce vita (1960). In Rome, in broad daylight, a statue of Jesus Christ appears in the sky, transported by a helicopter. The vision arouses the interest of a large part of the population, from the youngsters of the suburbs to the rich ladies of the penthouses in the city centre, and a reporter, Marcello Rubini, takes the opportunity to have the scenes immortalised by his photographer friends and the faithful photojournalist Paparazzo. Marcello is an aspiring writer who works for a tabloid newspaper, stationed every night in front of the clubs in Via Vittorio Veneto in search of some gossip or sensational photos of the acquaintances of showbiz personalities, rich bourgeoisies or aristocrats in search of excess. Despite living with a very jealous and depressed woman, Emma, Marcello has acquaintances with women of all kinds and from all walks of life. On the day an important Swedish actress arrives in Rome, Marcello accompanies the delegation to an open-air club in the Roman ruins and then escapes with the woman through the streets of central Rome.

One of Stanley Kubrick’s most celebrated films is returning to the big screen at the Giunti Odeon: a masterpiece of cinema history and a visionary work that transcends the boundaries of the science fiction genre to become a universal reflection on existence. Today, almost 60 years after its release, watching 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen once again means rediscovering a cinematic experience that is difficult to replicate at home. The vastness of the imagery, the hypnotic rhythm, the silence, the power of the soundtrack and the visual effects conceived by Stanley Kubrick take on a completely different dimension when the film is screened in the darkness of a cinema. Returning to the cinema thus becomes an opportunity to rediscover the full power of a film which, thanks to its original, immersive and monumental scale, retains its ability to amaze the viewer intact.

Released in 1968 and inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s short story The Sentinel – which he co-wrote with the director and later expanded into the novel of the same name – the film explores the connection between humankind, time, space and technology, questioning the fate of knowledge and the evolution of human intelligence. The story unfolds as a journey spanning millions of years: from prehistory, in which a group of ape-men, guided by the appearance of an enigmatic black monolith, discover the use of weapons and take a decisive evolutionary leap, right up to the year 2001, when a spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter becomes the scene of a silent and unsettling confrontation with the artificial intelligence HAL 9000. The cast includes Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter and Leonard Rossiter, whilst the film’s soundscape is marked by the famous works of Richard Strauss and Johann Strauss II. Beginning with the iconic opening of *Thus Spoke Zarathustra*, a symphonic poem inspired by the philosophical works of Friedrich Nietzsche, the music helps to lend the film its epic and metaphysical dimension. Nominated for four Academy Awards® and winner of the award for Best Visual Effects, 2001: A Space Odyssey remains one of Kubrick’s most radical and influential works, an essential landmark in the history of cinema.