Francesco Grandjacquet

During the Nazi occupation of 1944 Rome, Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi is pursued by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a means of escape.

Suave antiques dealer Alfredo Martelli is picked up by the police with no justification. At the precinct, Martelli realizes what the investigation is all about-- that he is the main suspect in the killing of his wealthy ex-lover. Is he guilty, or is he just a sleaze?

Mark Shiel is the author of “Italian Neorealism: Rebuilding the Cinematic City.” In this 2009 video essay, he discusses Roberto Rossellini’s depiction of the urban settings in Rome Open City, Paisan and Germany Year Zero.

Paola, a Milan call girl, returns home to her village in the Abruzzi mountains in an attempt to go straight. Rejected by her father, blackmailed by a former lover, and lusted after by her brother-in-law, she turns to her beloved sister for support. Denied succor, like so many of Rossellini’s isolated figures, Paola awaits the arrival of her fiancé, who has offered her a new start, but instead decides that life is untenable.

In a post-war Rome of 1946, a cat burglar inadvertently saves the life of a would-be suicide man who has returned from the war to find that he has been betrayed by his fiancée. From that moment the thief takes the ex-soldier under his wing. They leave the house together for a night full of misadventures. In the streets of Rome they meet a struggling typist who can’t pay her rent and opts for streetwalking; and a wandering amnesiac who lost his memory and keeps asking everyone “Do you recognize me?”.

Milan, one winter in the early sixties. Valeria, a free young woman who usually goes from one man to another, falls in love with Giampiero. This time, this is a serious relationship to the point that she contemplates marriage. All the more since she gets pregnant.