This HFA collection showcase brings together rare and beautiful 35mm prints of features by three of the major figures who reinvented Italian cinema during the crucial post-WWII years. Together the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Bernardo Bertolucci and Ermanno Olmi embrace different formal and political approaches to filmmaking and engage the topographies—both urban and ideological—reshaped by Italy’s postwar transformation. Balancing influential classics such as L’avventura, Il conformista and I fidanzati with little-known yet striking films such as Le amiche, Partner and A Man Named John, this series reveals the active dialogue taking place across the distinct careers of the three directors as they each forged singular career paths, alternately guided by the moral lessons of neorealist filmmakers before them and, in counterpoint, the avant-garde approach to language and narrative forged by contemporary Italian literature and poetry. – Haden Guest