Life Is Beautiful is a 1997 Italian comedy-drama film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni, who co-wrote the film with Vincenzo Cerami. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian bookshop owner, who employs his imagination to shield his son from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp. The film was partially inspired by the book In the End, I Beat Hitler by Rubino Romeo Salmonì and by Benigni's father, who spent two years in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II.
Theatrical release poster
The film was shot in Arezzo, Tuscany, including by the Badia delle Sante Flora e Lucilla.
Roberto Benigni received positive reviews for his film and performance, which he starred in with his wife Nicoletta Braschi.
Roberto Remigio Benigni is an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director. He gained international recognition for writing, directing and starring in the Holocaust comedy-drama film Life Is Beautiful (1997), for which he received the Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best International Feature Film. Benigni was the first actor to win the Best Actor Academy Award for a non–English language performance.
Benigni at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival in 2020
Benigni with Giorgio Gaber in 1990
Benigni and wife Nicoletta Braschi at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival
Benigni receiving a prize in Terni, February 2006
