A lengthy epic set in Calabria during the war and concerning a young man who, on being wrongly accused of murder, becomes a renegade. From the novel by Giuseppe Berto. —BFI Film & TV Database
Italian filmmaker and screenwriter Renato Castellani was born in Italy, but spent a few childhood years in Argentina when his father went there on an assignment for Eastman Kodak. Later Castellani was educated in Switzerland. He entered Italian cinema as a screenwriter during the late 1930s after studying architecture in Milan. Among the screenplays were Soldati, and Camerinini. In 1941 he became a director noted for the elegance that imbued his early films. Following WW II, he became known for his up-beat neorealist films. Among his best is Under the Sun of Rome (1948). After 1954, he returned to the detachment of his earlier style and made a British version of Romeo and Juliet. Soon afterwards his film career fizzled, and during the 1960s he began working in Italian television and writing/co-writing scripts. —Sandra Brennan, Rovi
