Renzo Rossellini’s lionized father Roberto was one of the undisputed masters of Italian post-war neorealism, and as we know from films like the recent Vera, which is about actor Giuliano Gemma’s daughter, being the child of a famous parent can have disastrous results. Renzo’s life, full of ambition, accomplishment and political commitment, has been quite another story. Along with his sister Isabella, he is one offspring of a large movie family who has left deep marks of his own on contemporary cinema. His career as a major Italian producer is all the more astounding for being intertwined with the avantgarde political movements that shaped his life.
Beginning his career as an assistant to his father and other directors in the 1960’s, he went on to produce some 64 movies and became the influential head of Gaumont Italia from 1977 to 1983. He has been associated with such memorable international productions as Joseph Losey’s Don Giovanni (1979), Werner Herzog’s 1982 adventure Fitzcarraldo, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Italian-set Nostalghia (1983), Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club (1984) and the Mickey Rourke-Kim Basinger erotic romance 9 ½ Weeks (1986).
His contribution to Italian cinema, in particular, has been enormous: Francesco Rosi’s Carmen and Three Brothers, Gianni Amelio’s Strike at the Heart, Fellini’s The Ship Sails On, Orchestra Rehearsal and City of Women, Antonioni’s Identification of a Woman, Ettore Scola’s That Night in Varennes, Mario Monicelli’s Il marchese del Grillo, Nanni Moretti’s Sweet Dreams, Marco Ferreri’s Chiedo Asilo, Franco Brusati’s Dimenticare Venezia and Liliana Cavani’s The Skin.
Before plunging into producing full-time, the young Renzo worked for over a decade as a director. In 1962 he shot one of the episodes of Love at Twenty in the company of Francois Truffaut and Andrzej Wajda, then turned his hand to documentaries like the RAI TV series The Age of Iron (1964) and Man’s Struggle for Survival (1970), which made use of texts by his father Roberto.
It was in the 1960’s and 70’s when Renzo’s political commitment came to the fore, along with other leftist filmmakers and artists. He represented the Algerian Liberation Front at a conference in Havana promoted by Ernesto “Che” Guevara, whose aim was to found a liberation movement uniting Asia, Africa and Latin America. In Italy, he became a member of the new-left group Avanguardia Operaia and created – along with director Mario Monicelli, future Nobel playwright Dario Fo and screenwriter Cesare Zavattini – the National Committee against Fascism in the Mediterranean.
A key moment was the foundation of Radio Città Futura, one of Italy’s first free radio stations created after the liberalization of the airways in 1976. It was founded by Renzo and publisher Giulio Savelli with the support of a number of leftist political groups. Soon afterwards, he was elected president of the Federation of Democratic Radio Broadcasters.
The death of his father in 1977 marked a return to cinema for Renzo, who became president of Gaumont Italia, a branch of the French company. During his tenure he produced and distributed over 100 titles. He is particularly remembered for transforming old Italian movie palaces with thousands of lumpy seats into modern multiplexes with A/C. With production, distribution and exhibition all under one banner, the company’s rise was rapid. He also founded a film school that was to prepare many illustrious alumni.
At the same time, his association with Radio Città Futura continued and, in the red-hot political climate of the time, he was accused of predicting the tragic kidnapping of Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro shortly before it occurred. Only in 2017 did Renzo reveal the source of his information to be a Palestinian who told him that members of Italy’s urban terrorists, the Red Brigades, were being trained in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, in a place that resembled a sound stage, for a very big action.
Violence brushed him personally in 1979 when a neo-fascist group attacked and burned the offices of Radio Città Futura, wounding five women with gunfire. Two years later, when Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan, Renzo became an active member of a non-violent group that included French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy, opposing the Soviet occupation. Making a secret trip to Afghanistan, Renzo brought radio transmitters and know-how for the local resistance movement.
Back in Italy, he was, for several months, shadowed by the Red Brigades, who planned to kidnap him. They are said to have abandoned the plan only because he was armed. But in 1984, he and his wife Elisabetta Caracciolo were driving near Rome when two cars pushed their vehicle off a cliff. His wife was killed and Renzo sustained serious injuries.
That year Renzo left Gaumont to found the distribution company Artisti Associati, which released the hit 9 ½ Weeks. Today he is president of the Roberto Rossellini Cultural Association for the Spread of Knowledge and has been active in conserving and re-releasing the work of his father Roberto.
The Film Verdict at Locarno Film Festival 2023.
