Roberto Rossellini's OPEN CITY (ROMA CITTA APERTA) is a landmark in the history of cinema, a humanist masterpiece and one of the earliest incarnations of Italian neorealism. Based on real events, it tells the harrowing story of several Italian Resistance fighters battling fascism in Nazi-occupied Rome. When Gestapo agents raid an apartment where Manfredi (Marcello Pagliero), a prominent member of the underground, is hiding, they arrest the young man who gave him refuge. Manfredi manages to escape, then enlists the help of a parish priest, Don Pietro (Aldo Fabrizi), to make a clandestine delivery to other members of the movement. Eventually, Manfredi is betrayed, and he and the priest are quickly captured by the Germans; what follows is one of the most brutally disturbing war torture scenes ever recreated on screen. With OPEN CITY, Rossellini has created a testament to the strength of the human spirit in the face of horrible adversity, in a story that extols the heroism of defiant, ordinary people who strive to hold onto their humanity in the cold, chaotic world of WW II. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay; Fellini collaborated with Rossellini in the writing of the script. OPEN CITY is all the more remarkable in that it was made immediately following the liberation of Rome, had been developed while Rossellini himself was in hiding, and was filmed in the locations where the true events that the story is based on, occurred.

OPEN CITY, Roberto Rossellini's startling depiction of Nazi-occupied World War II Rome, and one of the most prominent examples of his neorealist cinematic style, is the story of a tenaciously held underground resistance against the Germans. When its leader, Manfredi (Marcello Pagliero), and a priest, Don Pietro (Aldo Fabrizi), are captured, the resistance collapses, with disastrous personal results to all. A harrowing, documentary-like film, in which the screen goes entirely black for seconds at a time, OPEN CITY is a true classic in the postwar genre. Anna Magnani, Rossellini's real-life wife, stars in the film as Manfredi's fiancee.


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Filmed on location in the war torn streets of Rome, Italy, in 1945.

Roberto Rossellini and his colleagues came up with the idea for ROME, OPEN CITY while they were in hiding during the Nazi occupation of Rome. They shared an apartment with one of the leaders of the Resistance, and based the screenplay on actual events relayed to them by members of the underground. The character of the priest, Don Pietro, was based on a real-life clergyman, Father Don Morosini, who was murdered by the Germans during World War II.

Rossellini says of OPEN CITY'S production: "We began our film only two months after the liberation of Rome....We shot it in the same settings in which the events we recreated had taken place. In order to pay for my film I sold my bed, then a chest of drawers and a mirrored wardrobe.... [It] was shot silent, not by choice but by necessity.... After the film was edited, the actors dubbed their own voices."

DVD Features:

Region 0
Full Frame - 1.33

Distributor Notes: The stars play an impoverished mother-to-be and a parish priest whose loyalties are tested by the sinister German forces that occupy their homeland during World War II.

Source: Image Entertainment, Inc.

Anna Magnani: Italian Actress
Aldo Fabrizi: Italian Actor

Roberto Rossellini: Italian Director/Screenwriter

Renzo Rossellini: Italian Producer

"Roberto Rosellini's Italian neorealist classic was a major postwar phenom....Still packs a punch..."
"[A] masterpiece....It offers a documentary-like record of the era that shows the extraordinary heroism of the ordinary people who opposed Nazi rule."
"[A] pioneering neo-realist masterpiece....OPEN CITY looks like a documentary and has often been mistaken for one..."