Roberto Benigni’s LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL is a daring departure

for one of the world’s most acclaimed comic filmmakers.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival,

the Best Jewish Experience Award at this year’s Jerusalem

International Film Festival and the Audience Award at both the Toronto International Film

Festival, the Vancouver International Film Festival and

the Montreal World Film Festival.

In addition, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL is the recipient

of 8 David di Donatello Awards (the Italian Oscars)

including Best Picture.Best Actor, Best Director,

and Best Screenplay along with Vincenzo Cerami,

the film is a Chaplinesque fable about the power of

imagination set against the stark reality of World War II

Europe.

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL combines satire, physical comedy, social commentary and a touch of the surreal into

a uniquely moving story of love. At the center of the fable is Guido, an enchanting

individual with childlike innocence and grand dreams of owning his own bookshop.

It’s 1939 and he has come to the Tuscan town of Arezzo with his poet friend Ferruccio. With unabashed humor and joy, the two seek fortune and romance, ignoring the growing anti-semitism and fascist government that surrounds them. Guido falls in love with Dora,

a beautiful young school teacher.

Unfortunately, the woman he calls his “Princess”, is already engaged. Worse, she is engaged to the local fascist official with whom he has had a run-in. Guido,

however, is not deterred and a fairy tale romance ensues.

Several years later Guido and Dora are married and have a son, Giosue, and Guido has finally opened the bookshop of his dreams. But now, the occasional

bigotries Guido once ignored have become Racial Laws with which he must come to terms.

Throughout it all, Guido determines to shield his son from the brutal reality governing their lives.

This determination becomes a matter of life and death when Guido and his son are sent to a concentration

camp three months before the war’s end. Dora, of her own accord and because of her love for her son and

husband, deports herself on the same train. Now, in this unimaginable world, Guido must use his bold imagination and every ounce of his indefatigable

spirit to save those he loves.

One of the world’s most acclaimed comic filmmakers and entertainers, Roberto Benigni has rendered his

most ambitious and moving work to date with LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, a fable

about the powers of love and imagination set against World War II Europe. In the U.S., Benigni is best

known for his many memorable comic performances in such films as Jim Jarmusch’s “Down By Law” and

“Night On Earth,” as well as for the role of the infamous Inspector Clouseau’s son in Blake Edward’s “Son of the Pink

Panther.”

He has also recently appeared in Wim Wender’s “Far Away, So Close!”.But

around the world, Benigni is also known as a filmmaker with his own unique style. Among the films he has written, directed and starred in are: “Johnny Stecchin”,

“The Little Devil”, “The Monster”. Benigni began his career in Rome’s

theatres. He attained great popularity as a television star and appeared in many

acclaimedfeature films, including “II Pap’occhio” and “11 Minestrone.” In 1983, he directed his first feature film, “Tu Mi Turbi” and

went on to direct his next film, “Non Ci Resta Che Piangere” with co-star Massimo Troisi (“Il Postino”). In 1996, he made

“TuttoBenigni,” a feature film of his live theatrical performances which established his comic sensibilities

worldwide. His other film credits include Federico Fellini’s last film “La Voce Della Luna.”

Benigni continues to work on stage.

He appeared as the reciting voice in a memorable

performance of “Peter and the Wolf”. He also recently toured Italy with his one-man comical

show.

He also appeared in the long-awaited screen version of the popular European comic book

“Asterix” with Gerard Depardieu.

NICOLETTA BRASCHIIn the film “Life is beautiful” Nicoletta Braschi appeared

with Benigni as the main actress. Popular Italian

actress Nicoletta Braschi has appeared in all of Roberto Benigni’s comedies, but

never has she taken on a rolelike that of Dora, the beautiful young school teacher who

finds herself swept off her feet by the enchanting Guido andthen makes her own incredible sacrifice of love.

Braschi previously co-starred with Benigni in his

popular films “The Monster” and “Johnny

Stecchino,”The Little Devil”, with Walter Matthau and in Benigni’s first feature “Tu

Mi Turbi”. She also appeared with Benigni in Jim Jarmusch’s offbeat

American comedy “Down By Law” and went on to star in Jarmusch’s “Mystery Train”. Her other feature film credits include Giuseppe Betrolucci’s “Segreti Segreti” and “La Domenica Specialmente”; Marco Ferreri’s “Come Buoni I

Bianchi”; Marco Tullia Giordana’s ‘Pasolini: Un Delitto Italiano” and Paolo Virzi’s “Ovosodo.”

Giorgio Cantarini is the precocious 5 year old who convincingly portrayed the son, Giosue.

Cantarini's facial expressions are priceless.

Both films show the ideology of Holocaust. In the film “Life is beautiful” the main hero Guido is Jewish. The film focuses on one man. His life has inestimable value to him. By the time our herofaces the Nazi inhumanity.This one life carries the weight of all the deathsof the Holocaust.

The Talmud teaches that a person who murders the others commits a crime which is

equivalent to destroying the whole world. Life is Beautiful illustrates the Talmud’s point

brutally and magnificently.

Polish and Italian young people chose these films because they are interested in history of two countries: Poland and

Italy during the World War II, the period when their grandparents lived. The young people want to know the

history of the Holocaust which was one of the most horrific events of the 20th century.

The word „holocaust” derives from the Greek word "holokauston" which originally meant a sacrifice totally

burned by fire. In the 1950's the term came to be applied to the destruction of the Jews of Europe by the Nazi German

state. "Holocaust" is also used to describe the annihilation of other

groups during World War II.

The common memory of the Holocaust joins the Polish and Italian young in this way that they both would never like to experience that terrible event again. They want to warn and prevent people from killing each other and losing their humanity. Nowadays the camps certify that horrific period

of the modern history. Nazi camps in Poland in which millions of Jews were murdered as part of the "Final

Solution", as well as hundreds of thousands of Romanies (Gypsies), non-Jewish Poles and Soviet prisoners of war.

The 6 extermination camps in Poland were Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. The

purpose of those six camps was the systematic extermination of human beings and disposal of their bodies. It was done in a factory-like manner by poisonous gas in gas

chambers or gas vans. The bodies were buried in mass graves or burned. The overwhelming majority of victims

in those 6 camps were Jews.

The establishment of ghettos was often the first stage in a process which was followed by deportation to concentration camps and selection for

extermination or for forced labour. Ghetto was an enclosed district where Jews were forced to live separate from the rest of society.

Both the Polish and Italian young study the history of the Holocaust at school. They were working on this topic

during the project and in Poland they had the possibilty of visiting one of the camps. So the visit to Auschwitz – Birkenau camp (Oświęcim –

Brzezinka) in Poland was the result and the summary of students` work.

Warsaw Ghetto on Fire

When the Italian friends came to Poland they, together with the Polish students, visited the Auschwitz – Birkenau camp.

Auschwitz - a concentration, forced labour and extermination camp was the largest camp established by the Germans.

It has been called the largest graveyard in human history and has become a symbol for the Holocaust itself.

The Auschwitz complex consisted of Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau or Birkenau), Auschwitz III

(Monowitz) and forty-five sub-camps.

Auschwitz I began as a penal camp. The "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Leads

to Freedom) sign was above the entrance

to Auschwitz I.

It was the site of the infamous Block 11, the punishment block, and the site where the depraved "Medical

experiments" were carried out.

Auschwitz II or Auschwitz-Birkenau was a forced labour and extermination camp of vast dimensions. It played a central

role in the plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe, the so-called “Final Solution”.

Women Sent to be Gassed at Auschwitz

Trains arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau daily with Jews from almost every German occupied country in Europe. The new

arrivals underwent a process of selection. The majority, including all of the old people, the young and mothers with

children, were sent directly to the gas chambers. Those who were chosen for forced labour were tattooed with their camp

numbers on their left arms.

Auschwitz is today a Polish State Museum and Historical Archive and a popular tourist destination for hundreds

of thousands of tourists each year.