About

White Nights will screen from an imported 35mm film print.

White Nights is a triumph of aesthetic beauty and sumptuous artifice. Based on a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Visconti transplants the tale from the streets of St Petersburg to the Tuscan canal city of Livorno, created on the sets of a Roman film studio. Visconti’s depiction of the cityscape embraces a dreaminess that exposes both the allure of the streets and the licentious underbelly hidden from view.

Marcello Mastroianni plays Mario, a handsome flaneur who meets Natalia (Maria Schell) wandering the streets one winter evening. Natalia longs for a man with whom she had a fleeting romance and whose promise to return to her remains unfulfilled. Nevertheless, she and Mario share a flirtation over four nights that offers a chance for both of them to escape their own loneliness.

Ages 15+