Bitter Rice

Bitter Rice
Original theatrical poster
ItalianRiso amaro
Directed byGiuseppe De Santis
Screenplay by
Story byGiuseppe De Santis
Carlo Lizzani
Gianni Puccini
Produced byDino De Laurentiis
StarringVittorio Gassman
Doris Dowling
Silvana Mangano
Raf Vallone
Checco Rissone
Carlo Mazzarella
CinematographyOtello Martelli
Edited byGabriele Varriale
Music byGoffredo Petrassi
Production
company
Lux Film
Distributed byLux Film
Release date
  • 7 September 1949 (1949-09-07)
Running time
108 minutes
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian

Bitter Rice (Italian: Riso amaro [ˈriːso aˈmaːro, ˈriːzo -]) is a 1949 Italian neorealist crime drama film directed and co-written by Giuseppe De Santis, produced by Dino De Laurentiis, and starring Vittorio Gassman, Doris Dowling, Silvana Mangano, and Raf Vallone. The story follows a pair of fugitives, who hide among the rice fields of northern Italy. The Italian title of the film is based on a pun; since the Italian word riso can mean either "rice" or "laughter", riso amaro can be taken to mean either "bitter laughter" or "bitter rice".

Released by Lux Film, Bitter Rice was a commercial success in Europe and the United States. It was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for the 1950 Academy Award for Best Story.

In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."[1]

  1. ^ "Ecco i cento film italiani da salvare Corriere della Sera". www.corriere.it. Retrieved 2021-03-11.