alr

Germany Year Zero
(Germania, anno zero)

Screening on Film
Directed by Roberto Rossellini.
With Edmund Moeschka, Franz Kruger, Barbara Hintz.
Italy/France/Germany, 1947, 35mm, black & white, 78 min.
Italian with English subtitles.

The third panel of Rossellini’s war triptych (following Rome, Open City and Paisan) was, according to the director, "an attempt to discover the real reasons which had driven the Germans to act as they had done." The film is cast in the likeness of its young central character, Edmund, and the devastated city in which he lives. Rossellini conceived the film around the final scenes of Edmund wandering in the ruins. This long final sequence marks the end of a narrative trajectory that begins in the mode of documentary reportage but becomes ever more hallucinatory, charting a journey through a strange, devastated landscape.

Part of film series

Read more

Italian Cinema

Other film series with this film

Read more

Frames of Mind

Read more

Frames of Mind

Read more

Frames of Mind

Read more

Frames of Mind: Approaches to Film Theory

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Jean-Pierre Bekolo, 2024 McMillan-Stewart Fellow

Read more

The Practice (and Other Works) By Martín Rejtman

Read more

Chronicles of Changing Times. The Cinema of Edward Yang

Read more
Gene Hackman crouched beside a toilet with audio equipment

From the HFA Collection...

Read more

Being In a Place. Rediscovering Margaret Tait