Shoeshine( Sciuscia)

Directed by Vittorio De Sica
1946
Casts: Rinaldo Smordoni, France Interlenghi. Anielo Mele, Drone Ortensi, Pacifico Astrologe

Shoeshine was filmed on location in postwar Rome using non-professional actors. It was inspired by the real stories of those struggling to overcome the oppressive forces of a corrupt and ineffective political system.

Two shoeshine boys in Post World War Two Italy dream of buying a beautiful white horse with their meager earnings and some quick cash they pick up by dealing in black market goods. After being set up by their accomplices, they are arrested and sent to a prison-like reform school. Once there, they are purposely separated, tricked into betraying each other and ultimately destroying each other. "Shoeshine", along with "Open City" and "The Bicycle Thief", heralded the Italian Neo-realist movement and created an international sensation.

It was hailed by critics as one of the most passionate and vivid Portrayals of forsaken youth in the Neo-realist cinema. James Agge, in his 1947 review called it "One of the few fully alive, fully rational films ever made." Orson Welles said that when he saw Shoeshine, "...the camera disappeared, it was just life".It was also the first foreign film to receive an Oscar. "The high quality of this motion picture," noted the Academy, "brought to eloquent life in a country scarred by war, is proof to the world that the creative spirit can triumph over adversity."