In 1953, Joe Morelli is traveling rural Sicily, offering to take screen tests of wannabe actors for a fee. He claims to work for big Roman film studios, but in reality he is a fraud. He meets several people who express their deepest feelings and secrets in front of the camera. At one of his stops he meets a young girl, Beata, a convent girl who becomes attached to him despite his protestations.
Joe and Beata's relationship gradually evolves into a romantic one, when he's exposed as a fraud, beaten, and arrested. After serving his prison term, Joe comes back to seek Beata, but finds her in a mentally disturbed state assuming Joe died. Pretending to be Joe's friend, he conveys to her a message that she was the love of his life, and promises he shall come back with money and take care of her.
When filming began, Tiziana Lodato was still a minor, but she said she was already 18 when she played the explicit sex scene with Sergio Castellitto.[3]
Release
Following its success at the Venice Film Festival, the film was released on 22 September 1995 in Italy, grossing $371,000 in its opening weekend from 49 screens in Italy's key cities.[4][5]
Reception
The Star Maker has an approval rating of 75% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 12 reviews, and an average rating of 6.5/10.[6]