Stromboli (Terra di Dio)
In this visually rich and unique film (the second in our Italian Neo-Realism season), a young woman marries a fisherman to escape from a prison camp. But she cannot get used to the tough life in their volcano-threatened village, Stromboli.
Lithuanian Karin (Ingrid Bergman) flees her war-ravaged home country and winds up in Italy, where she is sent to an internment camp. There, she meets Antonio (Mario Vitale), a POW who has just been freed. They enjoy a brief romance, punctuated by Antonio's marriage proposal, and Karin, seeing her chance to escape the camp, accepts. But Antonio takes her back to Stromboli, the volcanic island he lives on, and Karin struggles with a language barrier, brutal living conditions and her outsider status. This partnership (professional and romantic) between Bergman and Rossellini started when she sent a letter to the director after seeing his ‘Rome, Open City’ (also screening this season), saying that if he could use a Swede who could speak good English, but could only say “ti amo” in Italian, to get in touch with her. The rest is history.
Italy 1950 Roberto Rossellini 81m
