Paisan (Paisà) is Italian slang for a fellow countryman, a compatriot, maybe even a “brother from another mother.” PAISAN is also the title of Italian Neorealism cinema hero Roberto Rossellini’s second film in his War Trilogy.

Hopefully, you were lucky enough to see his first film, ROME OPEN CITY, when it screened at a branch of Boston Public Library in our own Little Italy – the North End. Even if you didn’t, I implore you to find all of this director’s movies and watch them. Please, I’m begging – his movies should be part of every curriculum that even hints at the inhumanities brought about by war to say nothing of his skills as a storyteller and filmmaker.

Still of Carmela Sazio in the 1st Episode of PAISAN

PAISAN follows the trends of Rossellini’s other films by featuring mostly non-actors and being shot on-location in the countryside post World War II Italy. PAISAN is told in six episodes, each written by a different author. However, the director frequently veered off script in favor of improvisation even going so far as to throw it completely away in the first vignette – he opted to personally coach the illiterate Carmela Sazio in a breathtaking performance. PAISAN is a study on the tenuous relationship between the Italians and their American liberators. It’s a movie about barriers – of war, race, language, philosophy, and faith. It’s also a movie about the universal things that cross all of these.

PAISAN (1946) DIR. ROBERTO ROSSELLINI
5/14 – 5:30PM
FREE

Boston Public Library
North End Branch
25 Parmenter Street, Boston, MA 02113

Stay tuned! Be sure to catch Rossellini’s GERMANY, YEAR ZERO (1949) on 5/28.