Rome, Open City

  • May 8, 2014 / 19:00
  • May 18, 2014 / 16:00

Director: Roberto Rossellini
Cast: Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani, Marcello Pagliero, Harry Feist, Vito Annichiarico, Nando Bruno
Italy, 103’, 1945, black & white

Italian with Turkish subtitles

The war was barely over when director Roberto Rossellini filmed his 1945 masterpiece Rome, Open City, bringing the immediacy of a documentary to the devastating story about the choices people must make when all order has collapsed. Rossellini set his film a year or two earlier, as the occupying Nazi authorities conspired to crush the city’s resistance. Rome’s people were forced into an impossible position – resist? Collude? Or merely exist in the painful grey area between the two? Rossellini’s characters are many (and several were non-professional actors), but at the heart of this honest, angry film is an engineer and resistance fighter on the run (Marcello Pagliero); a priest (Aldo Fabrizi) assisting the cause, and a brave pregnant woman (Anna Magnani) engaged to another partisan. Much is devastating – but Rossellini found room, too, for the humor and warmth of everyday life.

Rome, Open City

Rome, Open City

Paisan

Paisan

Germany Year Zero

Germany Year Zero

Stromboli

Stromboli

Umberto D

Umberto D

Bread, Love and Dreams

Bread, Love and Dreams

I Vitelloni

I Vitelloni

Journey to Italy

Journey to Italy

Banditi a Orgosolo

Banditi a Orgosolo

Cesare Zavattini

Cesare Zavattini

History of Italian Cinema

History of Italian Cinema

Trailer

Rome, Open City

From Cypresses to Turkish Landscapes

From Cypresses to Turkish Landscapes

Among the most interesting themes in the oeuvre of Prassinos are cypresses, trees, and Turkish landscapes. The cypress woods in Üsküdar he saw every time he stepped out on the terrace of their house in İstanbul or the trees in Petits Champs must have been strong images of childhood for Prassinos. 

It’s better to burn out than to fade away

It’s better to burn out than to fade away

In 1962 Philip Corner, one of the most prominent members of the Fluxus movement, caused a great commotion in serious music circles when during a performance entitled Piano Activities he climbed up onto a grand piano and began to kick it while other members of the group attacked it with saws, hammers and all kinds of other implements.

Return from Vienna

Return from Vienna

Józef Brandt harboured a fascination for the history of 17th century Poland, and his favourite themes included ballistic scenes and genre scenes before and after the battle proper –all and sundry marches, returns, supply trains, billets and encampments, patrols, and similar motifs illustrating the drudgery of warfare outside of its culminating moments.