Through the work of Professor Antonio Vitti, a significant archive of screenplays, manuscripts, research notes, and photographs from the Italian filmmaker Giuseppe De Santis (1917-1997) is coming to the IU Lilly Library. De Santis is perhaps best known for his film Riso amaro (Bitter Rice, 1949), a classic of neorealism which was nominated for an Academy Award and for the Grand Prize at Cannes. The hard living conditions and class system of post-war Italy were the theme of many of De Santis’ films. Overall, he directed 11 feature films from 1947 to 1972, and wrote 21 screenplays.
The Lilly Library already obtained the written archives of one of De Santis’ collaborators, the director and screenwriter Carlo Lizzani, in 2011. Antonio Vitti was instrumental in both acquisitions, having personal and professional relationships with both of these major figures in Italian neorealist cinema. Vitti is the author of many publications on Italian cinema, including Giuseppe De Santis e il Cinema Italiano del Dopoguerra (Pesaro: Matauro, 2011) and several articles on Lizzani. Carlo Lizzani was also the featured speaker at one of Vitti’s early Italian film symposia, in Venice, 2003.
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