Bundesplatz-Kino, Klick Kino: Homage 
to Vittorio De Sica

Vittorio De Sica (1901–1974) is counted among the most significant and most productive personalities in Italian film history. His filmography comprises more than 30 works as a director as well as the over 150 films in which he acted. Alongside Roberto Rossellini and Luchino Visconti, he was one of the central representatives of neorealism. His films received the main prizes in Cannes and at the Berlinale as well as four Oscars for Best Foreign Film. In collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute, Arsenal is presenting eight of De Sica’s directorial works and five films from his acting career. They are showing at the Bundesplatz-Kino and Klick Kino as part of Arsenal on Location.

Vittorio De Sica began his career as a theater actor before being discovered by Mario Camerini for cinema, subsequently rising through the ranks to become one of Italy’s most popular actors. His meeting with screenwriter Cesare Zavattini left its mark on all his directorial works from 1940 onwards, with the two of them going on to work together on nearly all of his films. Zavattini saw the possibilities of cinema to function as a “mirror of a social state” and wrote the script for SCIUSCIÀ (1946), a film that together with Rossellini’s Roma città aperta (1945) was celebrated as the start of a new cinematic style. Shot with non-professional actors at original locations, neorealism combined melodrama and precise observation of specific milieus to present the reality of post-war Italy and showed a keen interest in the fates of the poorest in society. SCIUSCIÀ and its follow-ups LADRI DI BICICLETTE (1948) and MIRACOLO A MILANO (1951) were acclaimed by critics and received international prizes. UMBERTO D. (1952), the final film of the neorealist tetralogy, was a commercial failure, however. According to conservative political circles, De Sica’s desire to address social inequalities went against the interests of the nation, which made it increasingly difficult for him to produce his films in Italy. In the 50s, he acted in over 50 films and used his earnings to finance his directorial works. Many of these films are remembered not least for De Sica’s acting skills. In his own inimitable way, he often played the bon-vivant, agile and vain, turning the act of wooing women into a veritable art form and relativizing his actions with subtle irony. Impressive performances in serious roles like Rossellini’s IL GENERALE DELLA ROVERE (1959) also bear witness to his versatility. In the 60s, De Sica turned his hand to lighter material and increasingly shot comedies. Although that decade is largely seen as a period in which De Sica became less significant as a director, he also directed some outstanding films in those years, including the war drama LA CIOCIARA (1960) as well as the prize-winning late work IL GIARDINO DEI FINZI-CONTINI (1970) about the fate of Italian Jews in the fascist era. (Hans-Joachim Fetzer)

An event with the friendly support of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Berlino.

At Bundesplatzkino, Bundesplatz 14, Berlin-Wilmersdorf and Klick Kino, Windscheidstr. 19, Berlin-Charlottenburg