Roberto Rosselini directs Anna Magnani in two short films about love and loneliness.
In the first segment, The Human Voice, an abandoned woman makes a last-ditch attempt to reconcile with her lover and pours out her feelings to him in an emotional phone conversation. This film is based on a play by Jean Cocteau. A new film by Pedro Almodóvar, based on the same play, is also screened in the Festival’s program.
In the second segment, The Miracle, a peasant woman in a small village believes a vagrant (Federico Fellini) is Saint Joseph. After the woman speaks with him, he offers her wine, and later she passes out. Weeks later, discovering she's pregnant, the woman tells the scoffing villagers that she is carrying the Christ child. Fellini wrote the screenplay for this film.
Filmography: Journey to Italy (1953), Germany, Year Zero (1947), Paisà (1946), Rome, Open City (1945).
Law of Desire, an early Almodóvar film that refers to the play, is screened in the Festival as well.