Shoeshine - The Criterion Collection

An international breakthrough for neorealism, Vittorio De Sica's Academy Award-winning film is an indelible fable of innocence lost amid the hardscrabble reality of 1940s Italy. On the streets of Rome, two boys - best friends Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi) - set out to raise the money to buy a horse by shining shoes. When they are inadvertently caught up in a robbery and sent to a brutal juvenile detention centre, their loyalty to each other is severely tested. A devastating portrait of economic struggle made all the more haunting by its child's-eye perspective, Shoeshine stands as one of the defining achievements of postwar Italian filmmaking.

Special Features

Bonus Footage, Documentaries: 'Sciuscià 70' (2016); Program on 'Shoeshine' and children in Italian neorealism featuring film scholars Paola Bonifazio and Catherine O'Rawe., Radio broadcast from 1946 featuring director Vittorio De Sica; Essay by David Forcags (film scholar); 'Shoeshine, Joe?': 1945 photo-documentary by De Sica; New cover by F. Ron Miller., Trailers

Actors: Rinaldo Smordoni, Franco Interlenghi, Annielo Mele, Bruno Ortenzi, Emilio Cigoli

Audio Languages: Italian

Duration: 91 minutes

Number of Discs: 2

Subtitle Languages: English

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