Roberto Rossellini

May 8, 1906, Rome – June 3, 1977, Rome

 

Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter.

Rossellini’s father built the first cinema in Rome, the Barberini, granting his son an unlimited free pass; the young Rossellini started frequenting the cinema at an early age. When his father died, he worked as a soundmaker for films and for a certain time he experienced all the accessory jobs related to the creation of a film, gaining competence in each field.

Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta (Rome, Open City 1945), Paisà (1946) and Germany, Year Zero (1948) – the Neorealist Trilogy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLSK04hJIN4

Paisà 1946 1part

In 1948, Rossellini received a letter:

Dear Mr. Rossellini,

I saw your films „Open City” and „Paisà”, and enjoyed them very much. If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German, who is not very understandable in French, and who in Italian knows only „ti amo”, I am ready to come and make a film with you.

Ingrid Bergman

With this letter began one of the best known love stories in film history…

More on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Rossellini

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ9e0ReGwy8

Journey To Italy 1954

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