Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy (Criterion) DVD

• New, restored high-definition digital transfers
• Video introductions by Roberto Rossellini to all three films (1963)
• New video interviews with Adriano Apra, Virgilio Fantuzzi & more!
• Audio commentary on Rome Open City by film scholar Peter Bondanella
• Once Upon a Time . . . Rome Open City, a 2006 documentary on the making of
• "Rossellini and the City" film scholar Mark Shiel
• Excerpts from a Rossellini discussion at Rice University (1970)
• "Into the Future," a new visual essay about the War Trilogy
• "Roberto Rossellini," a 2001 documentary by Carlo Lizzani
• Letters from the Front: Carlo Lizzani on Germany Year Zero
• Italian credits and prologue for Germany Year Zero
• New illustrated essay by film scholar Thomas Meder
• New and improved English subtitle translations
• PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by director Irene Bignardi and others

Edmund Meschke, Vito Annicchiarico, Carmela Sazio, Nando Bruno, Dotts Johnson, Ernst Pittschau, Maria Michi, Aldo Fabrizi, Ingetraude Hinze, Franz Otto Krueger

Roberto Rossellini is one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. And it was with his trilogy of films made during and after World War II - Rome Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year Zero - that he left his first transformative mark on cinema. With their stripped-down aesthetic, largely nonprofessional casts, and unorthodox approaches to storytelling, these intensely emotional works were international sensations and effectively launched the neorealist movement. Shot in battle-ravaged Italy and Germany, these three films are some of our most lasting, humane documents of devastated postwar Europe, containing universal images that encompass both tragedy and hope.

Rome Open City
This was Roberto Rossellini's revelation, a harrowing drama about the Nazi occupation of Rome and the brave few who struggled against it. Rome Open City is a shockingly authentic experience, conceived and directed amid the ruin of World War II.

Paisan
Roberto Rossellini's follow-up to his breakout Rome Open City was the ambitious, enormously moving Paisan, which consists of six episodes set during the liberation of Italy at the end of World War II, taking place across the country, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley.

Germany Year Zero
The concluding chapter of Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy is the most devastating, a portrait of an obliterated Berlin shown through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy.