the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with week with special guest Conor Murphy, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This August, we are taking a look at the films on the Irish Leaving Certificate Curriculum. This week, Gabriele Salvatores’ Io non ho paura.

In Italy, during the late 1970s, Michele Amitrano is enjoying the pleasures of a youth that seems like it might last last forever. One day, Michele makes a strange and unsettling discovery about what lurks in a strange hole on the edge of the village’s golden fields. What Michele finds might shake his world to its very foundations.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show Notes:

• Recorded 14th July 2025.
• Io non ho paura at The Internet Movie Database.
• Follow Conor on Twitter.
• Follow Conor on BlueSky.
• Follow The Video Trolley on Twitter.
• Read Conor’s film criticism at The Video Trolley.
• Read Conor’s writing about I’m Not Scared on The Video Trolley, January 2018.
• Sharon Dempsey writes about “cultural capital” at The Irish Times, October 2022.
• Jordan Ruimy writes at World of Reel about Apple’s reluctance to make its streaming originals available on home media, March 2025.
• Matt Schimkowitz writes at A.V. Club about the challenges of movie availability in an increasingly streaming-centric era, December 2024.
• Marc Tracy writes at The New York Times about the increased push for greater availability of streaming media in the streaming age, July 2025.
• Anthony D’Alessandro reports at Deadline about Viacom’s share of Miramax, December 2019.
• Brent Lang and Katcy Stephan write at Variety about the attempts to revive Miramax after Weinstein, April 2025.
• Tatiana Siegel writes at Rolling Stone about the raiding of Weinstein’s back catalogue by opportunists, April 2022.
• Adam Dawtrey at Variety reports on the purchase of I’m Not Scared at the Berlin Film Festival, February 2003.
• Phil Hoad at The Guardian considers “the rise of the postcard arthouse”, December 2013.
• Elisabetta Anna Coletti writes at The Christian Science Monitor about the rise in popularity of Italian cinema at the turn of the millennium, October 2000.
• Richard Natale writes at The Los Angeles Times about the success of a certain kind of international feature film, January 1999.
• Melanie Rodier writes at Screen Daily about the submission of I’m Not Scared by Italy to the Academy Awards, October 2003.
• The Lighthouse Schools Programme.
• Ian Thompson writes at The Guardian about the career of Niccolò Ammaniti, January 2009.
• Wendell Ricketts writes at Virtual Italia about I’m Not Scared, June 2004.
• Thomas Jones reviews Niccolò Ammaniti’s Anna for The London Review of Books, September 2017.
• Clyde Haberman writes at The New York Times about the legacy of Italy’s “years of lead”, August 1990.
• Henry Tanner at The New York Times reports on the recovery of the body of Aldo Moro, May 1978.
• The New York Times reports on the sentencing of the kidnappers implicated in the murder of Aldo Moro, January 1983.
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