She studied documentary filmmaking and obtained her diploma with the short films Incontro notturno (1961), about the friendship between two men, a white man and a Senegalese, and L'evento (1962) about a group of tourists who killed for fun.
[clarification needed] While attending film school, Cavani won a competition at RAI, Italy's national television network, and took a job there as a director of historical documentaries in 1961.
Made for television and aired in two parts, it drew comparisons to the films of Roberto Rossellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
[8] Lou Castel portrays Francis of Assisi as a slightly depressed protester and an avid, albeit mad, supporter of armed brotherhood.
[8] Called "heretical, blasphemous and offensive for the faith of the Italian people",[9] it caused the first of many polemical reactions to Cavani's work.
[11] The Cannibals (I Cannibali), Cavani's first film to rely on an independent production company, uses the myth of Antigone to present the contemporary political state of Italy.
[12][13] The film, set in the industrial city of Milan, recounts the struggle of a young woman against the authorities that prevents burying the bodies of rebels killed by the police, to serve as a warning to its citizens.
The plot centers on a woman who, after being released from a mental hospital, tries in vain to fit into society and flees into a fantasised past.
[25] In later years, The Night Porter was seen as a ground-breaking attempt to probe the unsettling sexual and psychological ambiguities generated by war.
Shown in competition for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, it was aimed at the international market with a star-studded cast, including Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Carlo Giuffrè and Burt Lancaster.
[citation needed] The Berlin Affair (Interno berlinese), made in 1985, was loosely based on the novel Quicksand by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.
[33] Set in Berlin in 1938, on the verge of war, the film tells the story of a German official working for the foreign office and his wife, both of whom are seduced by the young daughter of the Japanese Ambassador to the Third Reich and are dragged into a perverse love triangle.
[35] With Francesco (1989) Liliana Cavani returned to the life of St Francis of Assisi in a film starring American actor Mickey Rourke as the title character, and English actress Helena Bonham-Carter as Chiara.
She returned to her television roots and directed three TV opera production: Verdi's La Traviata (1992), Cavalleria rusticana on Pietro Mascagni (1996) and Puccini's Manon Lescaut (1998).
[42] The film tells the story of a gathering of old friends at a seaside villa who soon discover that the world might be ending within the space of a few hours.
[41] It is set to premiere out of competition at the 80th Venice International Film Festival,[43] where Cavani will be presented with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.