Rosi, Francesco

Born Nov. 15, 1922, in Naples. Italian film director.

Rosi began working in films in 1949. His early films included Red Shirts (1952; in collaboration with G. Alessandrini), Kean (1955; adapted from the drama by Dumas père; in collaboration with V. Gassman), and The Challenge (1958), which denounced the Neapolitan camorra (society of bandits). His best films, Salvatore Giuliano (1961) and Hands Over the City (1963), have a social orientation and reconstruct actual events.

In the 1960’s and early 1970’s, Rosi was one of the most typical representatives of Italian “political cinema,” which has given a new interpretation to neorealist traditions. His film People Opposed (1970) is devoted to World War I. The Mattei Affair (1972) deals with an Italian industrialist who advocates trade with the socialist and Arab countries and becomes a victim of the Mafia and of international monopolies. Lucky Luciano (1973) is concerned with the Italian-American gangster Luciano. These films, like Salvatore Giuliano and Hands Over the City, re-create actual events. The popular Italian actor G. M. Volonté stars in most of Rosi’s films.