A documentary feature film about Vittorio De Sica, one of the greatest masters of world cinema. Through a new access to his family, rare archives and testimonies of contemporary artists and filmmakers from the entire world, the film retraces his life, his work and legacy. An intimate portrait of an author able to transform the observation of the real into a universal emotion, revealing the modernity of a gaze that continues to illuminate cinema and our way of seeing the world.

Francesco Zippel, who has portrayed filmmakers whose careers trace some of cinema history’s great trajectories—from William Friedkin and Federico Fellini to Oscar Micheaux and Sergio Leone—turns his attention to Vittorio De Sica, master of Italian Neorealism. The documentary revisits De Sica’s life and work through the voices of contemporary filmmakers including Ruben Östlund, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Wes Anderson, Asghar Farhadi, and Francis Ford Coppola, who recall their personal encounters with Bicycle Thieves (1948) and the traces it left on their own cinema. Interviews with De Sica’s family further restore the man behind the filmmaker.
The film brings De Sica’s cinematic spirit—his ability to draw dignity and hope from the ruins of postwar Italy—back into the present. Especially moving are the animated expressions of the directors as they speak, reminding us that they too were once passionate moviegoers much like ourselves. A film in which people who love cinema once again talk about cinema, Vittorio De Sica – Staging Life reminds us that watching a film can still be a precious way of resonating with the world. Presented in Cannes Classics this year, the documentary counts Wes Anderson among its executive producers.

• ProducerFrancesco ZIPPEL, Federica PANICCIA
• Screenplay Francesco ZIPPEL
• Cinematography Marco TOMASELLI
• Edit Michele CASTELLI
• Music Rodrigo D’ERASMO, Calibro 35
• Cast Christian DE SICA, Isabella ROSSELLINI, Eleonora BALDWIN, Ruben ÖSTLUND, Jean-Pierre DARDENNE, Luc DARDENNE, Brando DE SICA

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