There is no movie that speaks more deeply to that almost spiritual journey any aspiring filmmaker makes from intern to master than Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1988 Academy Award-winning film, Cinema Paradiso. The story, about the friendship between a young boy and an aging projectionist who works at the titular movie theatre, is also a transcendent take on the aspirations of those who have followed the same path, of dreaming to rise about the mundane and make our own magic in the world. The appropriately wistful score for the film was written by the Italian film composer, Ennio Morricone (1928-2020) who also composed the soundtrack for the missionary drama, The Mission (1986) , the crime thriller, The Untouchables (1987) and many others. In 2007, Morricone received an honorary Oscar ‘for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music’ and in 2016, he won his first competitive Oscar for his score to Quentin Tarantino’s western feature, The Hateful Eight.

Here to perform the score for Cinema Paradiso is the famed violinist, Itzhak Perlman.