Rossellini: 100 Years Old Celebration

From June 16th through June 30th, 2006The Miami Beach Cinematheque (MBC) presents Rossellini: 100 Years Old Celebration this month with a wide variety of screenings and a related memorabilia exhibition in memory of the legendary Rossellini. The Father of Neorealism”, and later “The Father of Modern Film” (named by the French film criticism journal Cahiers du Cinema), Roberto Rossellini is the “Great Director” for June at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. The retrospective will include the most famous example of his Italian Neorealist filmmaking (introduced by Neorealist expert and MBC Founding Circle Member Jacque Moran), and the later period known as “Modern Film”. For the celebration of the centenary of his birth, his daughter Isabella Rossellini and Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin have made a short film which will open the retrospective. Roberto Rossellini’s 1945 anti-fascist masterpiece Rome Open City (Roma, città aperta) will be played with the highly unusual short tribute film, My Dad is 100 Years Old, in which Isabella Rossellini plays Federico Fellini, Charles Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, and her mother Ingrid Bergman, all discussing her father’s films, on Saturday, June 16, at 8:30pm. Considered by many the beginning of Italian Neorealism (the post World War II movement in Italy to portray reality on film, with documentary-like elements like non-professional actors, natural lighting, and on location sound recording), Rome Open City became the most famous symbol of the movement (even though it is not purely Neorealist, being propaganda with major star Anna Magnani playing a professionally acted dramatic role). Roberto Rossellini, the director who defended realism on screen against the commercialism of “simple entertainment”, went on to star his wife Ingrid Bergman in his “Modern Films” such as Stromboli and Viaggio en Italia, which screen at MBC one night each on Friday, June 23, and Friday, June 30, at 8:30pm. The retrospective will be accompanied by an exhibition of rare vintage memorabilia from the MBC Archive, including original programs from the films, and a rare original release Russian poster from Roma, città aperta. The Ingmar Bergman memorabilia exhibition “ Bergman: Images” also continues throughout June. For more information, please call: 305.673.4567