1993 | 100 min | Comedy, Biography | Italy | Italian, Neopolitan with English subtitles

CAST | Nanni Moretti, Renato Carpentieri, Antonio Neiwiller, Jennifer Beals

Caro Diario is autobiographical, deeply personal, and as funny as it is profound and original. It is impossible not to be drawn into Moretti’s warm-hearted, neurotic vision of the world. Divided into three chapters exploring different aspects of Moretti’s life. The first, ‘On My Vespa’, pays homage to his beloved Rome, the second, ‘Islands’, takes us on a literary journey to the Aeolian Islands, and the third, ‘Doctors’, is a reflection on his own health journey. Somehow, wit, a lightness of touch, charm, and ingenuity unify these strands into a coherent and unforgettable film.

Early scenes feature Moretti dancing to a Silvana Mangano song that plays from a tiny TV in a neighborhood bar. On the trusty Vespa, he then travels to Ostia to revisit the place where Pier Paolo Pasolini was killed. Early bite-sized vignettes give way to several episodes of his journey south towards the Aeolian Islands, as “director Moretti” searches for some peace and refuge from the consumption-focused society that Pasolini feared was taking over Italy. 

From there, the plot takes a spider’s path, with Moretti seeking greater and greater isolation, culminating with his friend Gerardo, a Joyce scholar who claims to never watch TV, becoming addicted to soap operas and running for the mainland and away from his principles. 

The final third of this gem of a film is dedicated to a true story of absurdity in medicine in which Moretti turns to doctors and psychologists to solve his ills — a recurring motif in his thinking cinema. 

It’s a masterwork by a modern movie man, for whom images have effaced the boundary between life and art. 

Richard Brody.The New Yorker

The Hollywood Reporter
WINNER

Best Director Cannes Film Festival

WINNER

Best Film - Cahiers du Cinéma

WINNER

Best Film, Best Music - Davide di Donatello Awards

WINNER

Fipresci Prize - European Film Awards

WINNER

Best Film - Italian Golden Globe Awards

WINNER

Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Golden Ciak Awards

Nanni Moretti

With his no-frills style and self-deprecating wit, it’s easy to forget the Italian helmer has been a major force in global cinema for more than 40 years. 

It’s hard to deny Moretti’s position as a successor to the great neorealists — Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini — and the generation of New Wave heroes of the 1960s like Michelangelo Antonioni, Bernardo Bertolucci and Lina Wertmüller who reclaimed and restored Italian cinema after the ravages of fascism. His list of awards and acclaims alone — the Palme d’Or for The Son’s Room in 2001, Cannes best director in 1994 for Dear Diary, jury prize winner in Venice for Golden Dreams in 1981 and in Berlin for 1986’s The Mass Is Ended — would seem sufficient to secure his international reputation and legacy.