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Eli Roth, who is known to have a passion for Italian B-movies, is at the Venice Film Festival to help promote biographical doc “Inferno Rosso: Joe D’Amato on the Road to Excess,” directed by Manlio Gomarasca and Massimiliano Zanin, in which Roth features as a talking head.

The doc, which premiered on the Lido as a special screening, sheds light on Aristide Massaccesi, known as Joe D’Amato, the under-the-radar producer, director and cinematographer who between the 1970s and the late 1990s spawned some 200 films in a wide range of genres spanning from spaghetti westerns to horror to erotic/exotic to porn. Roth spoke to Variety about what makes D’Amato stand out, including the fact that Indonesian-Dutch actress Laura Gemser starred in his “Emanuelle” franchise, not to be confused with the French “Emmanuelle” pics. Edited excerpts.

How did you discover Joe D’Amato and his films?

I first experienced...

'Emmanuelle' movies producer Alain Siritzky dead at 72 (photo: Sylvia Kristel in 'Emmanuelle' 1974) Emmanuelle franchise producer Alain Siritzky died after what has been described as "a short illness" on Saturday, October 11, 2014, at a Paris hospital. Siritzky, whose credits include dozens of Emmanuelle movies and direct-to-video efforts, several of which starring Sylvia Kristel in the title role, was 72. Ironically, Alain Siritzky didn't produce the original, epoch-making 1974 Emmanuelle. He became involved in that Yves Rousset-Rouard production via his Parafrance Films, which distributed Emmanuelle in France. 'Emmanuelle': 1974 movie sensation A couple of years after the release of Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones (not to mention Boys in the Sand and Eyes of a Stranger), and the year after Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider sparked a furor by having simulated sex in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, the 1974 French release Emmanuelle still managed to become a worldwide cause célèbre.

Star of 1974 film about bored housewife who embarks on voyage of sexual discovery dies after cancer battle and stroke

Sylvia Kristel, the Dutch-born actor who brought sex to the multiplex, has died at the age of 60. She had been battling cancer and suffered a debilitating stroke in June of this year. "She died during the night during her sleep," her agent, Marieke Verharen, told the Afp news agency.

Having initially worked as a model, Kristel rose to stardom in Emmanuelle, the 1974 tale of a bored, beautiful housewife who embarks on a journey of sexual discovery. Directed by Just Jaeckin, the softcore drama sent Kristel's character through an endless whirl of skinny dipping, masturbation and the leg-over antics of the Mile High Club. But Emmanuelle's hedonistic worldview struck a chord with mainstream 70s audiences. It went on to become one of the most successful French productions ever, earning upwards of...

Her film career was dominated by her role as Emmanuelle

There can be few film actors so closely associated with one role as was Sylvia Kristel, who has died of cancer aged 60. The title role of the sexually adventurous housewife in Emmanuelle (1974) became a reference for every part she played subsequently. This was not surprising, as the Dutch star did play a character called Emmanuelle, with few variations, many times over.

In the original film, Kristel portrayed the bored wife of a French embassy official in Bangkok, urged by her libertine husband to explore all the possibilities of sex. Thereupon, she finds herself in bed with, among others, a lesbian archaeologist and an elderly roué. Directed with some grace by Just Jaeckin, this glossy soft-porn package, dressed up as art-house erotica, was a huge international hit, becoming the first X-rated film to be released in the Us. Lushly photographed and...

Asked by Sight & Sound to name the ten greatest films of all time, Robert Bresson submitted the following, somewhat notorious list:

1. City Lights

2. City Lights

3. The Gold Rush

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

There are two ways in which Robert Bresson is rarely spoken about: as a comic filmmaker (though, as the above demonstrates, he could be pretty damn funny) and as someone whose work displays the influence of other directors.

Let's begin with that second point. Going back to some of the earliest defenses—as well as the earliest dismissals—of his work, Bresson has largely been described as a filmmaker "without precedent;" his detractors from the 1940s to the 1960s complained that his films didn't work the way movies were supposed to, and his supporters were more than happy to praise his films for the exact same reasons (Jacques Becker, for one, took the pages of L'Écran français to defend the poorly-received Les dames du Bois de Boulogne...

It’s that time of year again, kids. Dread Central’s 2010 Horror at the Oscars coverage. Horror was indeed present this year and in black-tie. While Roger Corman and Lauren Bacall were honored a few months back at the Governor’s Award Ceremony, it was an unexpected delight to see Corman, recipient of the lifetime achievement Oscar, enjoy a standing ovation on national television.

I was, however, very disappointed that neither of them were allowed to speak. Roger Corman’s contributions to modern cinema are too vast for him to just stand up and wave. James Cameron was one of many Corman acolytes present, and his nomination speaks to Corman’s tremendous legacy. On the Terminator DVD Cameron mentions, "I trained at the Roger Corman Film School.” Jonathan Demme, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola, among many others, were also former students.

The terror continued with a spoof of Paranormal Activity...