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Introduction
Location, location, location.
The mantra belongs to filmmakers, as it does to realtors.
Roberto Rossellini was one such director who embraced the landscape of Italy when he made Viva L’Italia! The film gave him the best opportunity to capture the stunning vistas, farmlands, and cities of Sicily, Campania, and other regions of Italy’s lower half. Viva L’Italia! is as much a tribute to the Mezzogiorno as it is to the film’s primary subject—the warrior of the Risorgimento, Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Never before did Roberto Rossellini have such a large budget as he did for Viva L'Italia! The Italian government commissioned the director to bring Garibaldi’s story to the big screen to mark the centennial of Italy.
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Garibaldi's Triumph On Celluloid
Rossellini was considered one of Italy’s best. Yet, he was often tasked to make gold from hay. He was plagued by shoestring budgets. His most famous film—Rome, Open City—starring Anna Magnani—had him relying on pedestrians and passersby for a number of scenes because he didn’t have the money to pay professional actors.
Television stations, owned by the Italian government (eventually becoming RAI), were the official backers of Viva L’Italia! Rossellini was given a budget of 400 million lire, more than 30 times what he had to spend in Rome, Open City.
Made and released in 1961, Viva L’Italia! was Rosselini’s first film in color. He considered this one of his best films. He captured the triumph, turmoil, and humanity of Italy’s unification through the figure of Giuseppe Garibaldi. The film remains one of the director’s most ambitious historical; a sweeping dramatization of the 1860 campaign that brought Sicily and southern Italy into a united kingdom.
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Sicily, Campania, & Calabria
Filmed extensively in Sicily, Campania, and Calabria, Viva L’Italia! achieves a remarkable authenticity. Viewers will recognize the sun-baked hills of Marsala, the narrow streets of Palermo, and the rolling countryside of Calabria — each landscape steeped in both natural beauty and the memory of revolution.
Veteran actor Renzo Ricci gives a noble, deeply felt performance as Garibaldi when he leads the famed “Thousand” through hardship and victory. Rossellini avoids sentimentality, instead presenting the campaign with documentary precision and moral weight.
For admirers of Italian history and cinema alike, Viva L’Italia! stands as a vivid journey into the nation’s soul—now available on DVD through PRIMO.
To give Viva L’Italia! its striking realism, Roberto Rossellini shot the film almost entirely on the same soil where Garibaldi’s 1860 campaign unfolded. Many of these sites remain among southern Italy’s most evocative and beautiful places:
Marsala (Sicily) – The port where Garibaldi and his “Thousand” first landed on May 11, 1860. Rossellini filmed along the harbor and surrounding salt flats, capturing the light and texture of the Sicilian coast.
Calatafimi (Sicily) – Scene of Garibaldi’s first victory over Bourbon forces; Rossellini recreated the battle in the actual countryside outside town.
Palermo (Sicily) – The liberation of the city provided the film’s grand urban sequences, staged amid the baroque streets and piazzas of the Sicilian capital.
Milazzo (Sicily) – The climactic fighting in northeastern Sicily was shot near the real beaches and hills where the battle occurred.
Naples (Campania) – Rossellini filmed key scenes in the environs of Naples, symbolizing Garibaldi’s triumphal entry into the city and the unification of southern Italy with the north.
DVD Details
90 Minutes—Movie
(With English Subtitles)
Directed by Roberto Rossellini
Written by Sergio Amidei, Luigi Chiarini, and Roberto Rossellini
Starring Renzo Ricci, Paolo Stoppa, and Tina Louise
Music by Renzo Rossellini
Special edition contents
Garibaldi - An alternate shorter cut version of the film
Viva Rossellini - A recent interview with Ruggero Deodato, assistant to Roberto Rossellini on the film
I am Garibaldi - A visual essay by Tag Gallagher, author of The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini: His Life and Films
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Price: $21.95
Free shipping & handling
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