Andrew Petrie

Rome, Open City still shocks

Shot in the dying days of the war, Roberto Rossellini's celebrated film burns with anger

[Getty Images/Shutterstock/iStock/Alamy] 
issue 15 March 2014

Roberto Rossellini shot his neorealist landmark Rome, Open City while the war still raged and rubble littered the freshly liberated capital. Based on real experiences from the ten-month German occupation, the film follows ordinary Romans, some active dissenters, some just trying to get by, as the Nazis and the Italian fascist authorities mount a search for a Resistance fighter freshly arrived from outside the city.

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