Roberto Rossellini
Anthology film by three directors, "A Day in the Country", "Jofroi" and "The Miracle".
Original newsreels, clips from Roberto Rossellini films starring the actress, and above all, astonishing home movies made largely by Ingrid Bergman herself: they all go into this story of the great Hollywood star's Italian years, from 1948 to 1956. Eight years that cover her memorable love affair with Roberto Rossellini, their three children and five unforgettable films. It's an Italian journey through Ingrid's eyes, here in an unusual role as "director", and an emotional and at times exotic look at the country, part family life, part Dolce Vita. The narrator for the occasion is the actress herself, in interviews and other stock footage, with the exception of a letter to Roberto Rossellini which is the stuff of legend, read by their daughter Isabella.
A personal portrait of mythical and controversial actress Ingrid Bergman based on her many home movies and diaries.
In 1948, a fan letter arrived for director Roberto Rossellini from Ingrid Bergman, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars; after a meeting in New York, Rossellini invited Bergman to Italy to work on a project. Meanwhile, Anna Magnani, one of Italy’s biggest stars and Rossellini’s longtime lover, was furious. When the Rossellini/Bergman project was announced as a tale set on Stromboli, one of the volcanic Aeolian Islands, Magnani quickly set up her own Aeolian project, financed by Hollywood, to be called Volcano. Italy’s tabloids simply went wild: the prospect of these two great divas battling it out with rival productions was breathlessly followed, especially as it became clear that the Rossellini/Bergman relationship was more than professional. Francesco Patierno has created an engrossing, revealing and highly entertaining chronicle of this cinematic battle royal.
Italy, March 1980. César travels to the ruins of Pompeii with the extravagant intention of recording psychophonies, supernatural echoes of the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed the city in the 1st century, but he does not succeed. However, on one of the tapes a strange phrase, much more recent, is recorded, words that César has already heard somewhere…
Filmmaker Jonas Mekas films 160 underground film people over four decades.
Documentary about the life and works of Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini.
Documentary about the life and work of actress Ingrid Bergman, with personal insights from her daughters, Pia Lindstrom and Isabella Rossellini.
Traces the life of Anna Magnani, her creations, her successes, her triumphs, her boycotted career, her nonconformism, her anxieties, her generosity ... Punctuated with photos that tell her career in theater and cinema, Extracts of films, this documentary portrait also gives the floor to his friends and relatives, from Roberto Rossellini to Marcello Mastroianni, through Federico Fellini.
Rossellini explores the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel during a concert by the chorus of the Cappella Musicale Pontificia conducted by Monsignor Domenico Bartolucci.
Directed by Roberto Rossellini (his final film). Rossellini takes numerous liberties with the original source material, rearranging and omitting events at will, presenting everything in a low-key, highly undramatic fashion. The film begins in Old Testament times, allowing Rossellini to present the story of Jesus in its ancient, historic context. This clip shows the Last Supper, depicted Rossellini-style.
An interview with the president of Chile, conducted by Roberto Rossellini.
In this evocative, atmospheric biography, Roberto Rossellini brings to life philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal, who, amid religious persecution and ignorance, believed in a harmony between God and science.
A biography of St. Augustine as he enters the episcopacy and deals with heresy and the decline of the Western Roman Empire.
This is an exposition of the social and political history of renaissance Florentine history, told through dramatised conversations between the main participants, Cosimo de Medici and Brunelleschi.
An elderly heiress is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out murder spree as relatives and friends attempt to reduce the inheritance playing field, complicated by some teenagers who decide to camp out in a dilapidated building on the estate.
In the 1960s, increasingly concerned with cinema's functions as an artistic and educational tool, Rosselini removed himself from the commercial arena and became the first major director to embrace the new medium of TV. Holding that the camera has the opportunity and duty to impart knowledge, he devoted his creative energies to TV films on science and history: The five-hour "The Age of Iron" (1964), "The 12-hour "Man's Struggle for Survival" (1967); "The 6-hour "The Acts of the Apostles" (1968), as well as biographies of Socrates, Blaise Pascal, Augustine of Hipp, Descartes, Jesus, and Louis XIV. Of these, only "The Rise of Louis XIV" (1966) received its due acclaim, mostly because it is one of the few films to get theatrical release. Stylistically, the TV work established the foundation for materialist cinema, the direct descendant of Neorealism.
This dramatization from the New Testament originated as a 342-minute, five-part television mini-series; it was subsequently released in a shortened, 280-minute version. In part one, the Apostles call the pilgrims of Jerusalem to be baptized, and Peter (Jacques Dumur) and John (Mohamed Kouka) are arrested by the Sanhedrin but later set free. In part two, Stephen (Zignani Houcine) is stoned for disobeying Mosaic Law, Philip (Bepy Mannaiuolo) baptizes an Ethiopian eunuch, and Saul (Edoardo Torricella) is blinded by the Lord while journeying to Damascus. In part three, Peter baptizes a centurion and Saul, renamed Paul, makes his first mission journey from Antioch in Syria to Pisidian Antioch. In part four, Paul preaches the equality before God of both the circumcised and uncircumcised. In part five, Paul is arrested in Jerusalem and sent to stand trial in Rome.
A documentary about Sicily and its peculiar customs, with an emphasis on religious rites and the clash of modernity versus traditional values.
Cardinal Mazarin dies, leaving a power vacuum in which the young Louis asserts his intention to govern as well as rule. Mazarin's fiscal advisor, Colbert, warns against Fouquet, the Superintendant who has been systematically looting the treasury and wants to be prime minister. Fouquet believes Louis will soon tire of exercizing power and overplays his hand by offering a bribe to Louis' mistress to be his ally. She reports this to the king who arrests Fouquet. Louis and Colbert design a brilliant strategy to keep merchants making money, nobles in debt, the urban poor working and fed, and peasants untaxed. Years later, in a coda, we see Louis exercizing the power of the sun.
This consists of four short films by different directors. Rosselini's 'Chastity' deals with an attractive air hostess who receives the unwelcome attentions of a middle aged American. Godard's 'New World' illustrates a post-apocalypse world the same as the pre-apocalyptic one but for an enigmatic change in attitude in most people, including the central character's girlfriend. In Pasolini's 'La Ricotta' (Curd Cheese), a lavish film about the life of Jesus Christ is being made in a poor area. The impoverished people subject themselves to various indignities in the name of moviemaking in order to win a little food. The central character is hoisted up on a cross for filming, and dies there. Finally comes Gregoretti's 'Free Range Chicken' in which a family of the materialist culture inadvertantly illustrate the cynical, metallic voiced doctrine of a top sales theorist.
During a war in an imaginary country, unscrupulous soldiers recruit poor farmers with promises of an easy and happy life. Two of these farmers write to their wives of their exploits.
Illibatezza ("Chastity") by Roberto Rossellini is a story of a beautiful stewardess who attracts unwanted attention from one of the air travelers – a middle aged American. By chance, the two stay in the same hotel overnight. She has a fiancé back home, to whom she sends 8mm films made with her camera. These show how, in order to shoo away the unwanted flirtatious attentions of the traveler, all she had to do was to act in an aggressively provocative way; his sexual attraction being fueled by the shyness with which she initially tried to endure his advances.
Vanina Vanini, a bored, spoiled Roman countess, falls in love with a dedicated young patriot who is in Rome to assassinate a traitor to the brotherhood of the Carboneria.
The film shows how Italy's historic national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi (embodied by Renzo Ricci) leads a military campaign known as Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 and conquers Sicily and Naples. When the Bourbon monarchy has left Southern Italy, he supports Victor Emmanuel II of Italy who achieves a lasting unification under the aegis the House of Savoy. Roberto Rossellini has said he was prouder of this film than of any other film he ever made.
In Nazi-occupied Rome, a beautiful bootlegger, to the chagrin of her lover, gives sanctuary to three escaped POWs: an American pilot, a Russian sergeant and a British major
Divided into four episodes Roberto Rosellini's performs a ritual trip with India covering culture, beautiful architecture and also the State of India society, create an impression and a feeling of Rossellini on the State of the Indian community at that time.
The Gestapo forces con man Victorio Bardone (Vittorio De Sica) to impersonate a dead partisan general in order to extract information from his fellow inmates.
Roberto Rossellini shot the film Psycodrame in 1956 for the Center d'études de radiotélévision. The staging of three "psychodramas" - organized by Professor Jacob Levi Moreno with Anne Ancelin Schutzemberger - gives Rossellini the opportunity to reflect on what can become a particularly congenial acting technique, and, in general, on the potential of didactic tv. Director of photography a very young Claude Lelouche. Digital restoration by the Archivio Nazionale Cinema Impresa - CSC and Institut National of l'Audiovisuel in collaboration with Museo Moreno.
Irene Wagner, the wife of the prominent German scientist Professor Albert Wagner, had been having an affair with Erich Baumann. She does not disclose this to her husband, hoping to preserve his innocence and their "perfect marriage". This fills her with anxiety and guilt. However, Johann Schultze, Erich's jealous ex-girlfriend, learns about the affair and begins to blackmail Irene, turning Irene's psychological torture into a harsh reality. When Irene finds out that the extortion plot is truly an experiment in fear, she is driven into a homicidal/suicidal rage.
This deceptively simple tale of a bored English couple travelling to Italy to find a buyer for a house inherited from an uncle is transformed by Roberto Rossellini into a passionate story of cruelty and cynicism as their marriage disintegrates around them.
A barber, murderer because of jealousy, spends twenty years in jail. He cannot, however adjust himself to a changed world and to the hypocrisy of his own relatives and decides to return behind bars.
Giovanna d'Arco al rogo (English: Joan of Arc at the Stake) is a 1954 Italian film directed by Roberto Rossellini and starring his wife Ingrid Bergman, which shows a live performance on December 1953 at the San Carlo Theatre in Naples. The film takes place mostly in a surrealistic fantasy around the time of the execution of Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc, played by Ingrid Bergman, is being burned alive for heresy. In a kind of dream state, she departs from her body and begins to look back upon her life. She begins this journey in a depressed and demoralized state. However, a priest appears to help guide her. First, he shows her those that accused her in the guise of animal characters, in order to show her their true nature. Then, he shows her the good that she has performed for people. In the end, she is proud of what she has done and is ready to face the flames.
Ingrid Bergman notices that her roses have been destroyed. At first she suspects it is her dogs or her children, but later on notices a chicken walking around the area of her roses. (Originally appeared as a segment of the omnibus film "Siamo donne (We, Women)" but later presented separately as a short film.)
Commissioned by a Swedish newspaper, this news-reel like short on the life of the famous Swedish actress is a kind of ‘at home with Ingrid Bergman’ reportage, depicting her at work and spending time with her children. Kort möte med familjen Rossellini happened to be made during the production of Journey to Italy in Naples and on Capri, thereby providing us with a unique record from the making of this legendary film.
Five portraits of actresses in their "common" life, seen as women rather than movie stars.
A wealthy, self-absorbed Rome socialite is tacked by guilt over the death of her young son. As a way of dealing with her grief and finding meaning in her life, she decides to devote her time and money to the city’s poor and sick. Her newfound, single-minded activism leads to conflicts with her husband and questions about her sanity.
A demon bestows on a self-righteous working photographer's camera the power to smite from the Earth "evil-doers".
A French/Italian motion picture drama covering the seven deadly sins in seven separate sections.
Approximately ten minutes of 35mm footage survives at the Svenska Filmminstitutet from a documentary (probably not completed or even edited) shot in the convent of the Swedish sisters of Saint Brigid, Rome, at the request of the Swedish Red Cross, for victims of the Polesine flood of November 1951.
In a series of simple and joyous vignettes, director Roberto Rossellini and co-writer Federico Fellini lovingly convey the universal teachings of the People’s Saint: humility, compassion, faith, and sacrifice. Gorgeously photographed to evoke the medieval paintings of Saint Francis’s time, and cast with monks from the Nocera Inferiore Monastery, The Flowers of St. Francis is a timeless and moving portrait of the search for spiritual enlightenment.
The final film in Rossellini's war film trilogy (the first two being Rome, Open City and Paisà). Germany Year Zero takes place in post-war Germany, unlike the others, which take place in German-occupied Rome and post-war Italy, respectively. The story follows a twelve-year-old boy, Edmund Kohler, who is mainly left to his own devices in order to survive and to help his family do the same.
Paola, a Milan call girl, returns home to her village in the Abruzzi mountains in an attempt to go straight. Rejected by her father, blackmailed by a former lover, and lusted after by her brother-in-law, she turns to her beloved sister for support. Denied succor, like so many of Rossellini’s isolated figures, Paola awaits the arrival of her fiancé, who has offered her a new start, but instead decides that life is untenable.
ROME, OPEN CITY is a landmark in film history. Filmed in secrecy during the Nazi occupation of Italy, the film shows a realistic portrayal of the underground resistance in Italy in 1945. The film has strong impacting imagery with its mix of fiction and reality that strengthened Italian Neo-realism and the film industry.
Although released anonymously, as was the custom with all films produced by the Italian Navy, La Nave Bianca is the first feature-length effort directed by Roberto Rossellini; it is also very much the work of its co-writer and supervisor Francesco De Robertis. The film combines a documentary look at the Italian Navy during World War II with newsreel combat footage and a scripted love story performed by non-professional actors.
Upstream river Ripasottile a shoal of perch fish have born. The news spreads around all animals who live around the river, until also the trouts hear about it, and swim upriver to go eat the newborn fish. So all animals around the river and from the wood organize a desperate expedition to fight the trouts back. At the end the birds manage to wake a fisherman up, just in time to have him catch all the trouts with a single haul.
The tale of two fish in love, threatened by an octopus and saved by an eel.
According to Ferrara, Rossellini told him it was a satire in which “Perfidious Albion,” a big turkey representing England, goes around pecking at the hens representing the nations of Europe, until defied by a rooster representing Italy. “Rossellini detested it,” said Ferrara, “[though his] genius was such that he could achieve extraordinary effects out of nothing.
La vispa Teresa (“Lively Theresa”) is based on a well known song; a girl, ten, catches a butterfly and all the other insects intervene to save it.
Successful WWI pilot Luciano Serra has problems adjusting to an ordinary life in peace, so he leaves his family and becomes a pilot in America. In the 30s, his son in Italy wants also to become a pilot, and Luciano accepts an offer of a double dealing agent for a flight from Rio to Rome, but his plane crashes in the Atlantic. For the world Luciano Serra is missing, but he has entered the Italian army under a new name to fight in Ethiopia. The train in which his unit travels is attacked by Ethiopian soldiers, his son flying a reconasaince mission is shot down and wounded by the same attacking enemies. Will Luciano be able to fly the plane back, to get close air support for the outnumbered Italian troups?
A mermaid emerges from the sea, dances with a faun, and leaves behind a veil for the faun's masturbatory fantasies. Possibly unfinished.
