Roberto Rossellini's Neorealist Masterpiece

When Roberto Rossellini came to Berlin in 1947 to make a film about the city, he was already one of Europe's most celebrated directors. With Rome, Open City (1945) and Paisan (1946), he had defined postwar cinema and neorealism itself.

Shot amid the rubble of bombed-out Berlin, Germania anno zero (Germany Year Zero) draws on non-professional actors to tell a story of the immediate postwar period and the fragile hope of a new beginning. The film follows 12-year-old Edmund as he drifts through the city's destroyed streets, taking on whatever work he can find to help his family eat and survive. One day he encounters his former schoolteacher and hopes for guidance, but the encounter leads Edmund somewhere far darker.

This is essential cinema—a film that captures a moment of profound rupture and human vulnerability with unflinching realism. Part of the exhibition project "Berlin plant. Stunde Null" at the n.b.k.

Language: Italian original with English subtitles
Duration: 74 minutes
Free admission

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