Gianfranco Rosi: An American Cinematheque Retrospective

ABOUT THE SERIES:

The American Cinematheque is honored to welcome acclaimed documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi in-person for a retrospective as a centerpiece of ‘This Is Not a Fiction 2026’ in celebration of Rosi’s newest film POMPEI: BELOW THE CLOUDS. Rosi’s body of work has garnered global recognition and has made him the only documentarian to win both the Golden Lion and Golden Bear at the Venice and Berlin International Film Festivals.

In SACRO GRA, Rosi follows a scarcely known population on the ring-road highway circling Rome and made history as the first ever documentary to receive the Golden Lion in 2013. The win was preceded by a FIPRESCI Award at Venice among others for EL SICARIO, ROOM 164, an in-depth approach to one hitman’s life on the run from cartels in Ciudad Juárez. Each of Rosi’s films present a unique approach to the oblique. His latest work, POMPEI: BELOW THE CLOUDS, reveals the modern lives unfolding under the ancient Mount Vesuvius while IN VIAGGIO: THE TRAVELS OF POPE FRANCIS retraces the steps of Pope Francis over 10 years, reckoning with issues like poverty, migration and war face to face. No matter how seemingly powerful a subject is, it is inward strength and resilience of spirit that Rosi conveys even in his earliest works like BOATMAN, capturing life, death and beauty on the Ganges river in the 1990s, which launched Rosi’s work onto to the world stage at Sundance, Locarno and Toronto International Film Festivals. He then pointed the camera towards our own backyard at the day to day survival efforts for residents of Slab City, CA, a five-year effort to create the renowned BELOW SEA LEVEL. In the Academy Award nominated FIRE AT SEA, winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2016, Rosi finds it in the striving of migrants on a Sicilian island. And lastly, in NOTTURNO, shortlisted for Best International Feature Film by the Academy in 2021, he finds the quiet hope that urges those civilians violently impacted by war on the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, and Lebanon, to persevere until night becomes day. Join us in conversation with the incomparable Gianfranco Rosi while we allow his films to bring us closer to who we are.