People Of Rome

I wanted to make this film a long time ago, but I feared comparison with Fellini's Roma, Ettore Scola confessed after the advance screening of his latest film Gente di Roma (The People of Rome), which opened the 20th Europa Cinema Festival in Viareggio, Italy. However, his portrait of Rome and its inhabitants is so unlike the one Federico Fellini created over thirty years ago, that it would hardly occur to anyone to place these works side by side. [...] Ettore Scola always distinguished himself not only for his much more realistic approach to his material, but also for his political outlook. This is also manifested in the film Gente di Roma which like Fellini's Roma is constructed upon a series of episodes and the individual sequences are arranged chronologically from the early morning to late at night. Each is different, however: documentary elements merge with fiction, events of a choral character featuring amateurs alternate with scenes whose dramatic effect is intensified by the mastery of the professional actors. [...] In tiny, lightly sketched stories, the film captures the characteristic traits of modern times and the typical attitudes of Romans in their attempts to cope with them. An important role in the film is given over to the phenomenon of the Roman attitude to immigrants. On the other hand, Ettore Scola (who is not a native of Rome but has spent almost all his life here), emphasises the fact that, here, racism does not smack of aggression as in other places, since Romans have been accustomed to barbarian invasion from way back, and so they perceive outsiders more with indifference; without being aware of it, they assume certain traits of the cultures of immigrants who are themselves thus able to become integrated among them much more easily than elsewhere. Scola's film captures the everyday face of today's Rome, with all its contradictions, but without passing judgement. Eva Zaoralová
Italy
'
2003

Director
Ettore Scola

Script
Hector
Paola
Silvia Scola

Cinematography
Franco Di Giacomo

Editing
Raimondo Crociani

Production
Roma Cinematografica-Istituto Luce

Cast
Antonello Fassari
Arnoldo Foà
Fabio Ferrari
Giorgio Colangeli
Stefania Sandrelli

Music
Armando Trovajoli

Awards
Best Supporting Actor Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists

Festivals
10th Festival on Wheels
EUROPE EUROPE