This Thursday the San Diego Italian Film Festival (SDIFF) will showcase the neorealist classic, “Rome Open City” ("Roma città aperta") at the Museum of Photographic Arts in honor of Italian Liberation Day.

The neorealist movement began after World War II as Italian filmmakers looked to telling stories of ordinary people struggling to survive in a country shaken by war. Roberto Rossellini originally conceived his 1945 film as a documentary about a priest accused of resistance activity and executed by the Nazis but the film eventually turned into a broader portrait of Italians living under the German occupation.