A freckle-faced farmer becomes an accidental Anarchist embroiled — alongside a brilliant sex worker — in a plot to assassinate Mussolini.
A film of operatic emotion and subversive comedy, Love & Anarchy is a powerful statement on the terror of fascism and the ignoble fates of those who challenged it.
From 1963 until her death in 2021, Italian filmmaker and screenwriter Lina Wertmüller weaponized comedy to skewer the status quo. While championing the downtrodden, she seared political ideology across the spectrum, reveling in the essential absurdity of the modern world and humanity full stop.
The first female filmmaker to receive a Best Director nomination at the Oscars, she challenged the second-wave feminism of her time, weaving class consciousness and gender politics into common cloth, shredding both proletarian male-chauvinists as well as the women of the bourgeoisie.
Extravagantly colorful, sexually-charged, and acidicly funny, we present three films produced in rapid succession from 1972-1974 finding Lina Wertmüller and global cinema writ large at a charmingly anarchic high.
"Passionate and stirring."
–The New York Times
"Executed with the high-pitched passion of a gothic romance with a fluid, whirling, dazzling energy."
–Newsweek
