In Depth

Hometown Boy Makes Good: Cinema Paradiso -- The filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore was born in Bagheria on May 27, 1956. Before making films, he was an award-winning still photographer and later a director of TV documentaries. In 1985, he made his feature movie debut with the film Il Camorristal (The Professor). But it wasn't until 1989 that he received world acclaim for Cinema Paradiso (aka Nuovo Cinema Paradiso), a nostalgic and unabashedly sentimental tribute to the influence of movies on a young boy's life, shot on location in Tornatore's hometown of Bagheria.

The film won a Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar as Best Foreign Film of the Year. In 2002, Tornatore restored 52 minutes to his 1989 film and rereleased it, entitled Cinema Paradiso -- The New Version. Among other changes, the film has an entirely different, mood-altering last act. New ending or old, the director's films are said to "touch the soul of Sicily."