Carlo Lizzani Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Carlo Lizzani was born in Rome in 1922. He was an important Italian director, screenwriter and film critic. He played a significant role in the founding of the neorealist movement, primarily as a critic and screenwriter, before making his mark as a politically engaged director, covering some of the most difficult moments in Italian history, from fascism to contemporary events.
In the early 1940s Lizzani contributed to the debate on realistic cinema within academic circles through his articles in newspapers and magazines. Read the full biography

Carlo Lizzani was born in Rome in 1922. He was an important Italian director, screenwriter and film critic. He played a significant role in the founding of the neorealist movement, primarily as a critic and screenwriter, before making his mark as a politically engaged director, covering some of the most difficult moments in Italian history, from fascism to contemporary events.
In the early 1940s Lizzani contributed to the debate on realistic cinema within academic circles through his articles in newspapers and magazines. He later became a fierce opponent of the fascist regime, after which he moved to Milan in 1945 to join the weekly "Film d'oggi", where he collaborated with Aldo Vergano, Roberto Rossellini and Giuseppe De Santis as a screenwriter, actor or assistant director . He eventually left journalism to focus on documentary making before moving into fiction.
Lizzani's Marxist and strongly historicist theoretical background led him to direct films that reconstructed episodes of Italian life, abstaining from personal narratives. As the neorealist movement faded, it turned to popular cinema, particularly the detective genre, to capture disturbing events in Italian society, including the emergence of urban banditry, neo-fascism, and organized crime.
In the 1980s Lizzani began collaborating with RAI, the Italian public television, producing several films in double versions. He also continued to work as a film historian and critic, publishing several books and serving as director of the Venice Film Festival.
Lizzani directed his first feature film, Achtung, Banditi! in 1951, chronicle of a partisan episode of the Italian Resistance. It was followed by other noteworthy works, including Love That Pays (an episode of Love in the City, 1953), Chronicles of Poor Lovers (1954), an evocative portrait of 1920s Florence based on the novel by V. Pratolini, and Il gobbo (1960), a vivid portrait of a bandit from the outskirts of Rome (the 'hunchback of the Quarticciolo') active during the Resistance. He has also directed several films for television, including Fontamara (1980), An Island (1984) and The Five Days of Milan (2004), as well as the documentary Giuseppe De Santis (2007). Among Lizzani's publications we remember Il cinema italiano (1953).