समाचार

Rome -- "La Prima Cosa Bella" (The First Beautiful Thing), a noir comedy from Paolo Virzi set in the 1970s, surprisingly emerged as the most nominated film for Italy's best-known film honor, the David di Donatello awards on Thursday.

The relatively low profile film was nominated in a year-best 18 categories including the top categories of best film and best director, outpacing more heralded projects including Marco Bellocchio's Mussolini biopic "Vincere" (which premiered in Cannes last year), Giuseppe Tornatore's Sicilian epic "Baaria" (Italy's candidate for the foreign language Oscar), and "Mine Viganti" (Loose Cannons) a comedy set in southern Italy from Ferzan Ozpetek (the film debuted in Berlin). Winners will be announced May 7.

Bellocchio, Tornatore, and Ozpetek's films still did well among nominees, garnering 15, 14, and 12 nominations, respectively. All three were nominated in the best film and best director categories, where they will face off against Virzi and "La Prima Cosa Bella...