In Tuscan lore, the evening of August 10th is la notte di san lorenzo (the night of the shooting stars). Each of these stars is believed to grant one wish. In this celebrated film by Italy's Taviani brothers, a woman asks for the words to tell her son about that same night during the last days of World War II. The Nazis occupied Italy and the fascists had mined her small Tuscan village of San Martino. Skeptical of the fascists' promise that all peasants will be safe in San Martino's cathedral, a group of villagers opt to leave and search for the Italian partisans and advancing American forces. Among those to depart is the woman, then only six years old. La Notte di San Lorenzo is the story of the villagers' remarkable exodus, the fate of those left behind, and the partisan struggle against fascism -- lyrically intertwined with their thoughts, loves, fears, and memories, as well as the fantasies of a young girl experiencing the tragedy she perceives to be her greatest adventure. ~

The Night of the Shooting Stars (Italian: La Notte di San Lorenzo, also known as The Night of San Lorenzo) is a 1982 Italian fantasy war drama film directed by Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani. It was entered into the 1982 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Jury Special Grand Prix.[1] The film was also selected as the Italian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 55th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.[2]

The film was given a rapturous review by the critic Pauline Kael in The New Yorker : " The Night of the Shooting Stars is so good it's thrilling. This new film encompasses a vision of the world. Comedy, tragedy, vaudeville, melodrama - they're all here, and inseparable...In its feeling and completeness, Shooting Stars may be close to the rank of Jean Renoir's bafflingly beautiful Grand Illusion...unreality doesn't seem divorced from experience (as it does with Fellini) - it's experience made more intense...For the Tavianis, as for Cecilia, the search for the American liberators is the time of their lives. For an American audience, the film stirs warm but tormenting memories of a time when we were beloved and were a hopeful people." [3]

Release Date: February 1983

Distrib: United Artists Classics