One of my favorite directors is Turkish-born, Italian Ferzan Ozpetek, who has been making films since the 1990s. While he has made films on a variety of subjects, some of his best work has focused on the dynamics of gay relationships. His first feature film, Hamam (1997), told the story of a Turkish-born Italian man trapped in an unhappy marriage, who has inherited a derelict Istanbul hamam (Turkish bath). When he goes back to Istanbul to sell the property, he falls in love with a young man whose family had been managing the hamamand decides to renovate and reopen the establishment as a place where men attracted to men can meet. 

La Fate Ignoranti (2001, released in the U.S. as His Secret Life), centers on a recent widow who discovers that her husband had a male lover for years. The film explores the relationship between the wife and the lover that moves from hostility to friendship. Mine Vaganti (2010; released in the U.S. as Loose Cannons) is a delightful comedy about what happens when the two male heirs to a large pasta-making business come out as gay. 

Ozpetek’s most recent film, Nuovo Olimpo (streaming on Netflix), traces the lives of two men over forty-five years. In 1978, Enea, a film student, and Pietro, a medical student meet at the Nuovo Olimpo, a movie theatre that shows old films while gay men cruise each other in the auditorium, the hallways, and the toilets. Pietro is a shy, serious virgin who is attracted to Enea, but can’t bring himself to have sex in a toilet stall. Omnisexual Enea borrows the key to a large Roman apartment from his best friend, a young woman he occasionally has sex with. Enea is candid with her about his attraction to men, particularly the diffident Pietro. The two young men have a magical night of sex in this grand apartment, but an accident prevents their meeting the next night. The romance is over, but the two men never forget it.

Ten years later, Enea is a filmmaker whose first successful film is a recreation of his passionate night with Pietro. Pietro, now a married ophthalmologist, sees the film, but is so closeted and emotionally closed-off that he cannot express his response. Enea, a successful filmmaker, falls in love with Antonio, who becomes his devoted partner and his production director. They live in the apartment in which Enea and Pietro had their passionate night years before. Pietro on a couple of occasions over the years has tried unsuccessfully to restore contact with Enea.

Years later, Enea has an accident on a movie set that temporarily blinds him. Pietro is brought in to operate. The ensuing reunion allows the men to finally say goodbye to each other. Pietro will stay with his wife, who now understands why their marriage has been so cold, and Enea will stay with his devoted partner. 

There is a moment in Nuovo Olimpo when Enea reads of the death of the great Italian filmmaker, Federico Fellini. One can see the influence of Fellini’s work on Ozpetek, particularly the films where Fellini uses aspects of his own life. It is also obvious that, like a number of gay directors, Ozpetek has been influenced by the romantic melodrama of American filmmakers like Douglas Sirk. The basic outline of Nuovo Olimpo—a lost passionate connection that haunts the lovers for the rest of their lives—will be familiar to most movie lovers. It is certainly evident in Lie with Me, which I discussed in my last blog.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Nuovo Olimpo is the depiction of the cinema where Enea and Pietro first meet. Ozpetek gives the viewer a vivid picture of how this old theatre became a meeting place for gay men of all ages. It was a social center as well as a site for sexual encounters. Everyone seems to know everyone else. The theatre is managed by a larger-than-life woman, Titti. Years later, when Pietro goes back to try to find out where Enea is, the theatre has stopped showing classic Italian films and now shows porn, though the audience seems to be the same. Ozpetek’s presentation of this theatre reminded me of other works in which a movie theatre becomes a site of queer eroticism. Tennessee Williams wrote two superb short stories, “Hard Candy” and “The Mysteries of the Joy Rio,” about a run-down New Orleans movie house, formerly an opera house, where men go to have paid sex with young hustlers. Jaiming Tang’s beautiful recent novel, Cinema Love, opens in a shabby movie theatre in a small Chinese town in the 1980s, which is the only place where gay men can safely meet. The story follows three people whose lives were affected by that theatre as they move from China to impoverished lives in New York’s Chinatown where they are still haunted by the past of the Workers Cinema. I highly recommend this deeply moving novel—and Ferzan Ozpetek’s lovely film, Nuovo Olimpo. That film might lead you to view the other fine Ozpetek films I mention. Many are available on streaming services.