A restored version of Roberto Rossellini’s masterpiece, Roma Città Aperta - Rome, Open City is being re-released in cinemas across Italy, almost 70 years after it was made. Rossellini's neorealist classic was filmed in 1945, not long after the liberation of Rome and the end of the Nazi occupation of the Italian capital.
Conceived and written by Rossellini, Fellini and Amidei in 1944, Roma Città Aperta takes place during the occupation and tells the story of Roman citizens struggling to resist and survive under the Nazi occupation. Giorgio (Marcello Pagliero), a leader of the Resistance, is tracked down by the Gestapo. Trying to save himeself, he seeks help from Pina (Anna Magnani), his friend's fiancée. She turns to a priest, Don Pietro (Aldo Fabrizi), to find Giorgio a way out of the occupied city. Meanwhile, others find themselves betraying the Resistance for their own survival.
With De Sica's Ladri di Biciclette, Bicycle Thieves, it is considered as one of the most influential and symbolic films of its age, a movie about “real life” that has left a trace on every film movement since.
Grand Prize Winner of the 1946 Cannes Film Festival, ROME OPEN CITY was also nominated for an Oscar and stunned critics and audiences all around the world, introducing the concept of an authentic, documentary-like cinema: the beginning of Neorealism.
Martin Scorsese defined Roma Città Aperta “the most precious moment in film history”!
To find out where you can watch it in UK cinemas, click here.
