Newly restored, Roberto Rossellini’s neo-realist masterpiece depicts the struggles of four Roman partisans during the German occupation. Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi (Marcello Pagliero) flees the Gestapo and seeks a place to hide with the help of his friend Francesco, his pregnant fiancée Pina, and the priest who is due to marry them.

Shot only six months after the liberation of Rome, Rossellini and collaborators (including Federico Fellini) depict a city dominated by fear, violence, moral degradation and the raw courage of its inhabitants. Neo-realism itself arose out of the waning months of the war, and no film better conveys those circumstances than the seminal Rome, Open City.

Notes by David O’Mahony