Cinema Paradiso

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso is a 1988 film written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. The international version of the 123' film won the Special Grand Prix of the Jury at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Two years after the end of World War II in Ciancaldo, a Sicilian village, cinema is the only entertainment. In front of a noisy, but also emotional audience, the "parish priest-manager" shows famous American and Italian films on the screen, after appropriate cuts which are taken care of by the elderly Alfredo, the projectionist, who introduces Salvatore, a ten-year-old boy, son of a man missing in Russia and a fanatical cinema-goer, to the mysteries of the projection machine. 

When the booth catches fire because Alfredo wanted to project a comic film in the square, Salvatore, after saving Alfredo, who will remain blind due to the burns on his face, takes his place in the renovated Cinema Paradiso. Now a teenager, he falls in love with Elena, a wealthy girl. Called to arms after having asked Elena in vain for an appointment to say goodbye before leaving, he will not even receive an answer to the numerous letters he sends, regularly rejected in the barracks.

After the military service Salvatore does not return more to Ciancaldo because Alfredo has told him that his future is elsewhere and from the country many have emigrated to Germany to work. Thirty years pass: Salvatore, who has become a successful film director, is told by his mother that Alfredo is dead. Back to the country finds everything changed and the "New Cinema Paradiso" now dilapidated is demolished. Salvatore sees Elena again, married with children, but their story will not be able to start again, even if Elena is the only love of his life.