The new year brings a crop of new films from big names in Italian cinema, including Paolo Sorrentino, Matteo Garrone, Marco Bellocchio and Gabriele Muccino, who returned to make a film in Italy after several years based in the United States. Several of the films take their cues from real-life tales of true crime or characters who seem drawn from the outlines of prominent figures in Italian public life.

One such example is Sorrentino's highly anticipated "Loro", a surreal portrait played by Toni Servillo of a perennial politician and businessman not unlike Silvio Berlusconi.