Life+is+Beautiful

1939 Arezzo, Italy. Guido and his friend arrive in town. Guido, who's Jewish, is a funny, happy, naively sophisticated, imaginative man, who falls in love with a school teacher(Dora). With his wits and his imagination, he wins the heart of the teacher, who in spite of having agreed to a marriage proposal with an other guy, doesn't hesitate for a moment to run away with Mr. Guido, who was just a waiter by then. They have a kid who always enjoys the special imagination of his father. During WWII, the happy family gets swept off to a concentration camp, where the father, in order to make his son believe that the predicament is just an game his family is participating in, uses that very imagination and makes his son believe that it is a game they are playing and the 1st prize is a tank. Various levels of creativity are used by Guido to protect his son in the camp, where the old and the children are killed because they are not strong enough to work.

View this clip...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cTR6fk8frs

Lo sapevi….? Did you know…?

• Roberto Benigni (Guido) and Nicoletta Braschi (Dora) are married and have made many movies together.

• The little boy who plays Giosuè also played the son of Russelle Crowe’s character in Gladiator.

• La Vita è bella won many awards in the United States as well as in Europe. In America, it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, Best Actor (Roberto Benigni) and Best Musical Score. Benigni is the only foreign actor to have received the Oscar award for Best Actor.

 Benigni was presented the Oscar for Best Foreign Film by Sofia Loren, famed Italian actress from the 1960s.

 When Benigni won this award, he jumped over his seat and other people! He later claimed that this on honor of a film he was making at the time, Pinocchio. In this classic Italian fable, Pinocchio is asked to come onto the stage at a theater, by the actors who say “Come, you are one of us!” Therefore; Benigni felt that he was being accepted by his peers.

• La Vita è bella takes place in Arrezzo, in central Italy, where Benigni was born and raised in a poor family. Today, Benigni and Braschi reside in Florence, Italy.

 Other movies that you may enjoy starring Roberto Benigni and Nicoletta Braschi: Il Mostro (The Monster, 1994), Johnny Stecchino (1991), Pinocchio (2002), La Tigre e la neve (The Tiger and the Snow, 2005). Did you know!!!!