Trivia

Member of the 'Official Competition' jury in the 66th Venice International Film Festival in 2009.

Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival in 1979.

Supporter of the center-left Italian Democratic Party (PD) led by Walter Veltroni.

She had intended to become an archaeologist, a profession she soon abandoned in order to pursue her passion for the moving image.

She graduated in literature and philology at Bologna University in 1960, writing a dissertation on the fifteenth-century poet and nobleman Marsilio Pio.

On her mother's side, Cavani came from a working-class family of militant antifascists. Her maternal grandfather, a syndicalist, introduced her to the works of Engels, Marx and Bakunin.

Her films have historical concerns. In addition to feature films and documentaries, she has also directed opera.

Liliana Cavani belongs to a generation of Italian filmmakers from Emilia-Romagna that came into prominence in the 1970s, including Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Marco Bellocchio. Cavani became internationally known after the success of her 1974 feature film Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter).