Stromboli
Sometimes, you need to go back to the essentials, and Roberto Rossellini is one of them, a pillar of one of the most decisive movements in cinema, neorealism. Milestone after milestone, this program offers a journey through a body of work characterized by formidable rigor and astonishing density, particularly prolific from the post-war period until the dawn of the 1960s. Whether he filmed the ravages of war, the battles that are romantic relationships, or the complexity of spiritual destinies, he was able to elevate his subjects to a kind of timeless perfection, thanks to a highly precise direction, capable of capturing the human condition in the most intimate way.
Italy, 1945. Karen, a Lithuanian refugee, is locked up in a prison camp for being the mistress of a German officer. In order to leave the camp, she accepts the advances of a young Italian, Antonio, who is courting her through the fences. She marries him and follows him to his native fishing village on the island of Stromboli. But she soon suffocates there, crushed by the weight of cultural differences, the mistrust of the locals, local superstitions and the threatening presence of the volcano.
Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini is one of the most influential directors in the history of Italian cinema, playing a key role in bringing it to international prominence with films like Rome, Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), and Germany, Year Zero (1948), cementing his place as a founding figure of neorealism. Born into a bourgeois Roman family, Rossellini grew up in a rich artistic and cultural environment. His father, who built Rome’s first cinema, exposed him to film from an early age, allowing him to attend countless screenings. After directing several short films, he made his first three features, The White Ship (1941), A Pilot Returns (1942), and The Man with a Cross (1943), collectively known as his Fascist Trilogy. Shot as the fascist regime was collapsing, Rome, Open City (1945) won the Grand Prize (Palme d’or) at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946. He followed with Paisan, featuring non-professional actors, and Germany, Year Zero (1948), which earned the Grand Prize and Best Screenplay Award at the Locarno Film Festival. In the late 1940s, a letter from Ingrid Bergman sparked a relationship that placed them in the public eye. Together, they collaborated on several films throughout the 1950s, beginning with Stromboli. Rossellini continued making films until the mid-1970s, shortly before his death.
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