The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.

The Italian film industry took shape between 1903 and 1908, led by three major organizations - Cines, based in Rome; and the Turin-based companies 'Ambrosio' and 'Itala Film'. Other companies were soon to follow in Milan and Naples, and these early companies quickly attained a respectable production quality and were able to market their products both within Italy and abroad.

Between 1911 and 1919, Italy was the first country to start a new avant-garde movement in the cinema production, inspired by the Futurism movement in that country. The 1916 Manifesto of Futuristic Cinematography was signed by Filippo Marinetti, Armando Ginna, Bruno Corra, Giacomo Balla and others. To the futurists, cinema was an ideal art form, being a fresh medium, and able to be manipulated by speed, special effects and editing. Most of the futuristic-themed films of this period have been lost, but critics cite Thais by Anton Giulio Bragaglia (1917) as one of the most influential, serving as the main inspiration for the upcoming German Expressionist cinema.

Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.

Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.

Martin Charles Scorsese ( /skɔrˈsɛsɛ/; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation. He is a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won Academy Award, Palme d'Or, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and DGA Awards.

Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Italian American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption,machismo, modern crime, and violence. Scorsese is hailed as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers of all time, directing landmark films such as Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and Goodfellas (1990) – all of which he collaborated on with actor and close friend Robert De Niro. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed (2006), having been nominated a previous five times.

Gianni Morandi (born December 11, 1944) is an Italian pop singer and entertainer.

He made his debut in 1962 and quickly placed high at or won a number of Italian popular song festivals, including the Canzonissima festival in 1969. In 1970, he represented Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest with "Occhi di ragazza". His career went into a decline in the 1970s but underwent a revival in the 1980s. He won the Festival of Sanremo in 1987, placed second in 1995 and third in 2000.

It is estimated that Morandi has sold 49 million recordings.

His songs "In ginocchio da te", "Non son degno di te" and "Scende la pioggia" were certified as having each sold over one million copies, and were awarded gold discs. He has written a number of autobiographical books and appeared in 18 films. In TV he played Claude Jade's husband Davide in the 1984 TV series Voglia di volare.

Gianluigi Morandi was born in a little village called Monghidoro on the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. His father Renato was active within the Italian Communist Party and Gianni used to help him sell the party newspapers. At an early age Morandi worked as a shoe-shiner, cobbler and as a candy vendor in the village's only cinema. His vocal abilities led him to a number of small gigs, some of which were during the Communist Party’s activities.

Nicola Piovani (b. 26 May 1946, Rome, Italy) is a light-classical musician, theater and film score composer, and winner of the 1998 Best Original Dramatic Score Oscar for the score of the Roberto Benigni film La Vita è bella, better known to English-speaking audiences as Life Is Beautiful.

After high school, Piovani enrolled at the Sapienza University of Rome, receiving his degree in piano from the Verdi Conservatory in Milan in 1967, and later studied orchestration under the Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis.

Among his more popular works is the score for the Federico Fellini film Intervista, his second of three collaborations with the famous director, the others being Ginger e Fred (Ginger and Fred in English) and La voce della luna (The Voice of the Moon). Years later, he composed a ballet titled Balletto Fellini.

In 2000, his Academy Award-winning score for La Vita è bella was further nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media" category, losing to Randy Newman. In light of his recent work with French directors, notably Danièle Thompson, Philippe Lioret, and Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, the French Minister of Culture gave him the title of Cavalier (Knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres on 21 May 2008 at the Cannes Film Festival.