Roma città aperta / Rome, Open City

Rome, Open City is a 1945 Italian neorealist war drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini and co-written by Sergio Amidei and Federico Fellini. Set in Rome in 1944, the film follows a diverse group of characters coping under the Nazi occupation, and centers on an Italian Resistance fighter trying to escape the city with the help of a Catholic priest. The title refers to Rome being declared an open city after 14 August 1943. It forms the first third of Rosselini’s War trilogy, followed by Paisan (1946) and Germany, Year Zero (1948). Marking a watershed moment in Italian cinema, this galvanic work garnered awards around the globe and left the beginnings of a new film movement, Italian neorealism, in its wake.