Stromboli

Proudly presented by Janus Films

106 minutes

SPECIAL SCREENING AT THE HEIGHTS THEATER on Friday, March 20, in celebration of the Italian Cultural Center’s 20th Anniversary.
“Stromboli” was the first film ever screened by the Center and we wish to dedicate this special event to Massimo & Anna Bonavita, cofounders of the Italian Cultural Center and the Italian Film Festival of Minneapolis / St. Paul. Ticket sales to open soon!

Ticket sales to open soon!

+Intro, post-screening analysis and Q&A with Richard Peña, Emeritus Professor, Columbia University and Director Emeritus, New York Film Festival

ABOUT THE FILM

The first collaboration between Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman is a devastating portrait of a woman’s existential crisis, set against the beautiful and forbidding backdrop of a volcanic island. After World War II, a Lithuanian refugee (Bergman) marries a simple Italian fisherman (Mario Vitale) she meets in a prisoner of war camp and accompanies him back to his isolated village on an island off the coast of Sicily. Cut off from the world, she finds herself crumbling emotionally, but she is destined for a dramatic epiphany. Balancing the director’s trademark neorealism—exemplified here in a remarkable depiction of the fishermen’s lives and work—with deeply felt melodrama, Stromboli is a revelation.

Rossellini’s use of on-location shooting, natural lighting, and non-professional actors creates an immediacy and realism that immerses the audience in Karin’s emotional, physical and psychological struggles. The stark, rugged landscapes of Stromboli reflect her inner turmoil, turning the island into a living character whose unpredictability mirrors the challenges of human survival and resilience.

The film’s narrative is both a personal story and a social critique, exploring themes of displacement, gender roles, and the tension between individual desire and communal expectation. Ingrid Bergman delivers a masterful, restrained, empathetic performance, conveying both vulnerability and determination.

DIRECTOR’S BIO:

Roberto Rossellini

One of the founders of Italian Neorealism. Roberto Rossellini (1906–1977), originally trained as an engineer, began his career in film in the 1930s directing documentaries and short films, including works for the Italian government. His breakthrough came with “Roma città aperta” (1945, Grand Prize at Cannes, New York Critics Circle Award), which, along with “Paisà” (1946) and Germania Anno Zero constitutes the so called “War Trilogy”

Rossellini’s neorealist films often explored ordinary lives under extraordinary historical circumstances. “Paisà” (1946, Venice Biennale Award) portrayed the encounters between Italians and Allied forces during the liberation, while “Germania anno zero” (1948) examined the moral and physical devastation of postwar Germany. These powerful films contributed to the spiritual rehabilitation of an entire culture and people, and that of the very soul of Italy, through cinema.

The trilogy starring Ingrid Bergman, his wife at the time, composed by “Stromboli” (1950) “Europa ’51” (1952), and “Viaggio in Italia” (1954) constituted a not well received, major departure from his “war” films. The three films, in fact, focused on stories of people dealing with very intimate, personal journeys and spiritual experiences and audiences at the time found the films to be too experimental if not plainly dull melodramas; nonetheless, the films of this trilogy greatly influenced the future course of cinema, marking the very beginning of modern cinema.

Relased 1950

Directed by Roberto Rossellini