About the Birds and the Bees

The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (Italian: Signore & signori, lit. 'Ladies & Gentlemen') is a 1966 commedia all'italiana anthology film co-written and directed by Pietro Germi. It stars Virna Lisi, Gastone Moschin, Nora Ricci, Alberto Lionello, Beba Lončar, Franco Fabrizi, Nora Ricci and Gigi Ballista. The film consists of three segments set in a small town in Veneto: A married man pretends to be impotent to cover up an affair; a bank employee abandons his wife for his mistress; and a group of prominent local men discover that they all had sex with the same underage girl. The film shared the Grand Prix with A Man and a Woman at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. It was later selected for screening as part of the Cannes Classics section of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."