ROBERTO ROSSELLINI

Carlo Lizzani

(Rome, Italy, 1922-2013) was critic and essayist for the journal, Cinema, between 1941 and 1943. From 1945 to 1950 he worked as screenwriter with De Sica, Zavattini and Blasetti. He also worked as assistant director with Giuseppe De Santis for Bitter Rice, Roberto Rossellini for Germany Year Zero, and Alberto Lattuada for The Mill on the Po. In the 1970s and 1980s he was professor of directing and screenwriting at the Experimental Film Center. He was director of the Venice Film Festival from 1979 to 1983. He was also president of the National Association of Film Authors and of the scholarly committee for the Turin National Cinema Museum. One of the most significant directors of Italian cinema of the decades 1950-60-70s, he directed a series of important historical period pieces about fascism and Resistance movement, both genre films and political statements. Among them, Achtung! Banditi (1951), Cronache di poveri amanti (1954), Mussolini ultimo atto (1974), Fontamara (1980). His adaptation of the novel by Luciano Bianciardi, La vita agra (1964) is noteworthy. In 2007 he received the David di Donatello Award for lifetime achievement.

FILMOGRAFIA

Achtung! Banditi! (1951), Cronache di poveri amanti (1954), Esterina (1959), La muraglia cinese (doc., 1959), Il gobbo (1960), Il carabiniere a cavallo (1961), Il processo di Verona (1962), La vita agra (1964), La guerra segreta (1965), Requiescant (1966), Svegliati e uccidi (Lutring) (1966), Banditi a Milano (1968), Amore e rabbia (1969), Roma bene (1971), Torino nera (1972), Crazy Joe (1974), Mussolini ultimo atto (1974), Storie di vita e di malavita (1975), San Babila ore venti: un delitto inutile (1976), Africa nera, Africa rossa (doc., 1976/1977). Kleinhoff Hotel (1977), Fontamara (1980), Mamma Ebe (1985), Un'isola (1986), Caro Gorbaciov (1988), Cattiva (1990), L'Europa dei popoli (doc., 1995/1996, co-regia Francesco Lizzani), Celluloide (1996), Luchino Visconti (doc., 1999), Roberto Rossellini (2001). Hotel Meina (2007), Art. 1 (ep. di All Human Rights for All, 2008) Speranza (ep. di Scossa, 2011).