The Italian director’s career was briefly derailed when his ‘scandalous’ affair with the Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman hit the headlines in the 1950s. Their daughter Isabella remembers a devoted parent and a brilliant film-maker
In June 1977, Roberto Rossellini died suddenly of a heart attack, home in Rome, less than a week after serving as jury president of the Cannes film festival. The director’s daughter Isabella – the fourth of his seven children – was then in her mid 20s. She remembers her mother, Ingrid Bergman, saying: “Dad left us quickly, just as quickly as he drove his Ferrari.”
The story of Roberto’s last two decades is told in Living Without a Script, a new archive-based documentary, which premieres this week in Rome. While the film serves as a reminder of its subject’s status as one of the greats of world cinema – the key figure in postwar Italian neorealism – it also shows his life beyond movies.
