Vittorio De Sica's SHOESHINE Plays at The Film Foundation's Virtual Screening Room This Month
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A STILL FROM VITTORIO DE SICA’S SHOESHINE (1946). SOURCE: MUBI.
On the occasion of October being Italian-American Heritage Month, GME revisited an indelible collection of images documenting the Boys’ Town of Italy in the early 1950s, taken by photographer Raimondo Borea, an Italian immigrant. Boys’ Town of Italy was a shelter created by Monsignor John Patrick Carroll-Abbing, an Irish priest working at the Vatican, who witnessed the plights of homeless and orphaned children in Rome in the wake of World War II. Carroll-Abbing’s philanthropic efforts made him something of a celebrity, and by the time of his death in 2001, he was credited with feeding, housing, and educating over 180,000 children.
Each month, The Film Foundation, an organization dedicated to film preservation and the exhibition of restored and classic cinema, founded by director Martin Scorsese, presents one or more films in their new virtual theater, access to which is available through any web browser. This month’s feature will be Vittorio De Sica’s SHOESHINE (1946) which, like Borea’s Boys’ Town of Italy photo essay, chronicles the struggles of homeless and orphaned young children in Italy after the war, many of whom resorted to stealing, panhandling, and shining shoes to survive.
De Sica’s SHOESHINE is an essential piece of Italian neorealist cinema, and an ideal filmic compliment to Borea’s photographs. Starting on November 11th, you can register to gain access to De Sica’s film online, for a 72-hour period, by clicking on this link.
The Estate of Raimondo Borea is exclusively represented by Gartenberg Media Enterprises, Inc. GME is committed to resurrecting the career of this overlooked photographer through licensing his photographs, republishing his out-of-print books, mounting curated exhibitions, and identifying a long-term repository for this significant collection of photographic works. For additional information regarding our photography collections, contact David Deitch, Fine Arts Curator, at david@gartenbergmedia.com.