The Capture of Rome and Viva L'Italia
17 March 2011, 7pm
Free screening presented by the Embassy of Italy. Bookings essential on 6248 2000
Screenings
The Capture of Rome
(La presa di Roma) Italy, 5mins, 35mm
To launch a year of cinematic celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of modern Italian nation, two rarely-seen classics from Italian cinema that tell the story of the struggle to unite the nation. The Capture Of Rome is oldest surviving work of Italian cinema, recounting a key episode in Garibaldi unification of the Italian nation.
Live accompaniment by Mauro Colombis.
Viva L'Italia
Dir: Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 106mins, 35mm
Commissioned 50 years ago to mark the centennial of the Italian nation. Roberto Rossellini’s Viva l’Italia follows famed revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi (Renzo Ricci) as he liberates southern Italy from the Bourbon monarchy. In hindsight, it seems to also mark the transition by director Rossellini, from the neo-realism of his post-war classics Rome Open City and Journey to Italy, to his critically acclaimed late-career cycle of historical dramas made in the 1960s and 70s. It was the film Rossellini once professed to be most proud of; although highly aware of the success of Visconti, with his, similiar historical dramas Senso and The Leopard, he was clearly trying to grasp at an even wider understanding of the forces of history. 'Never before has a camera done anything like this, never before have we seen anything so vast… Viva L’Italia erupts into a crescendo of liberation across an ever-expending space.’ (Tag Gallagher).
Free screening presented by the Embassy of Italy. Bookings essential on 6248 2000
