Shoeshine

+ intro by season curator Giulia Saccogna

Sciuscià

Distinctly compassionate and humane, De Sica’s foundational neorealist drama was the first ever winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

  • Director

    Vittorio De Sica

  • With

    Franco Interlenghi, Rinaldo Smordoni, Aniello Mele, Bruno Ortensi

  • Italy 1946. 91min

  • Digital 4K (restoration)

  • Certificate

    12A

  • English subtitles

In the devastation of post-war Rome, two street kids shine shoes to escape starvation. Dreaming to buy a white horse of their own, they naively fall into petty criminality, ending up in a reformatory – a microcosm where their innocence and friendship crumbles. De Sica and Zavattini created a masterpiece of moving visual poetry – a work of painful beauty that owes much to Charles Chaplin and Jean Vigo.

Restored in 4K in 2022 by The Film Foundation and Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Orium S.A. with funding provided by Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory.

See other screenings of Shoeshine.