Two Italian movies were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in the 1990s, “The Postman” and “Life Is Beautiful” (1998), both distributed by Miramax. The 1995 “Il Postino” (“The Postman”) tells the story of an Italian postman who bonds with a legendary poet, Pablo Neruda, and wins the affections of a local girl through his heartfelt poetry.
The film was based on “The Postman of Pablo Neruda,” a novel by Chilean author Antonio Skarmeta. Massimo Troisi, who played the postman, suffered from heart problems and died only one day after the final take of the shoot. Troisi headed an international cast, with French actor Philippe Noiret, New Delhi-born English director Michael Radford. Trying to recreate Southern Italy in the 1950s, “The Postman” was shot on two islands off the coast of Sicily.