In this interview, conducted in 2004 by film critic Jean A. Gili, director Dino Risi discusses the true stories that inspired IL SORPASSO, why Vittorio Gassman was an unexpected choice for the leading role, and the film’s lasting influence on Italian cinema.

In 1983, Jean-Louis Trintignant sat down with his fellow actor Marie-Christine Barrault to introduce IL SORPASSO for an airing of the film on the French television program “Ciné passion.” In their conversation, presented here, he talks about being cast in the role of Roberto after shooting had al...

Award-winning filmmaker Ettore Scola began his career as a screenwriter, working with Dino Risi on a number of his films, including IL SORPASSO. In this November 2013 interview, Scola talks about Italian comedy filmmaking in the sixties, writing the character of Bruno, and the necessity of the fi...

Italy’s highest-grossing film of 1962, IL SORPASSO is among the most beloved movies of the golden age of commedia all’italiana, which lasted from the late 1950s to the 1970s. In this 2014 interview, scholar Rémi Fournier Lanzoni discussed the film’s resonance with Italian audiences, its social co...

The 2012 film L’ESTATE DI BRUNO CORTONA: CASTIGLIONCELLO NELL’ANNO DEL “SORPASSO” returns to Castiglioncello, the beach town where much of the second half of IL SORPASSO takes place, fifty years after the release of the film. This excerpt features interviews with members of the cast and crew.

This 2006 documentary by Fabrizio Corallo and Francesca Molteni was filmed on the occasion of director Dino Risi’s ninetieth birthday. It features interviews with his collaborators, friends, and family, as well as Risi himself, who talks candidly about his personal successes and the obstacles he ...

Director Dino Risi and actor Vittorio Gassman made sixteen movies together over three decades. In 2005, five years after Gassman’s death, Risi’s son Marco made a documentary about their complicated working relationship and how Risi transformed Gassman’s career. Excerpts from the documentary are p...