General Della Rovere

Winner of the Golden Lion at the 1959 Venice Film Festival directed by one the best directors of all time, Roberto Rossellini, and featuring world cinema icon Vittoria de Sica (The Bicycle Thief) Generale della Rovere, is a film based on the true story of a con artist who during the height of WWII exploits his fellow Italians by telling them that he will find their missing loved ones in exchange for money or gifts. When he attempts to save a man already executed he is turned over by the man’s wife and is forced to become a spy for the German commander by going into the Nazi prison under the false identity of Generale della Rovere in order to bring the Italian resistance fighters among the prisoners, out into the open. As the fake general slowly makes friends with these men, he becomes a leader of sorts, which causes him to realign his moral code and to come to terms with his past life.