Umberto D., 1952, Vittorio De Sica

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Umberto D.

Vittorio De Sica (IT 1952)

Age 15 plus
"I have no hesitation in stating that the cinema has rarely gone such a long way toward making us aware of what it is to be a man. (And also, for that matter, of what it is to be a dog.)," says film theorist André Bazin about one of the central works of Italian neorealism. Nearly without dramaturgy in the classical sense director Vittorio De Sica is showing a few days in the life of an impoverished retired civil servant, who is faced with eviction, pneumonia and social decline. Nothing in the film is blown out of proportion or turned into a huge tragedy. It just – with much patience and empathy – spreads out life's little moments before us.
 
The screening (D: Vittorio De Sica, 88 min) in original Italian language will be followed by 60-minute discussion of chosen sequences.