One of the most important films in the history of cinema, Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City – the first in his War Trilogy, followed by Paisan (1946) and Germany, Year Zero (1948) – is a gripping account of the Nazi and Italian Fascist occupation of Rome and the bravery of those who resisted it. Named after the city’s unfortified status, – a signal for the Allies to cease bombing – this portrait of time and place, split into two parts, follows a diverse variety of characters involved in the resistance movement including a priest (Aldo Fabrizi) helping the partisan cause, the fiancée (Anna Magnani) of a resistance member (Francesco Grandjacquet) and her own altar boy son (Vito Annicchiarico).

"All roads lead to Rome, Open City,” Jean-Luc Godard once said. This watershed moment for Italian cinema emerged from the ruins of the Second World War and Mussolini’s regime, taking home the Palme d'Or in 1946, sparking the Neorealist film movement and even kickstarting the careers of Federico Fellini (co-writer) and Anna Magnani, among others. Historic shifts aside, it’s not hard to see why this one is so revered; real urgency and anguish are marked upon the faces of actors and the actual city in rubble, as well as on Rossellini’s filmmaking as he faithfully and unflinchingly recreates the wartime experience from very recent memory.