IL NERO

Retrospective: Non siamo stati “Italiani brava gente”

On the background of a light-hearted and realistic Naples, a mosaic of events that tells the life of some “children of the Madonna”, children born after World War II from illegitimate relationships between local women and African American soldiers.

Vento’s debut film, written with Lucio Battistrada and Franco Brocani, Il nero, is one of the most precious examples of the Italian nouvelle vague. It was never released in theaters, despite a campaign supported by well-known directors such as Carlo Lizzani and magazines such as “Cinema nuovo”, and fell into oblivion after its premiere at the Berlinale. Now it is finally possible to watch it thanks to the recovery carried out by the National Cinema Museum of Turin, supervised by the director’s daughter Emilia Vento, and it is presented in a digital restoration realized by the same Cinema Museum and Compass Film