Roberto Rossellini's follow-up to his breakout Rome Open City was the ambitious, enormously moving Paisan (Paisą), which consists of six episodes set during the liberation of Italy at the end of World War II, taking place across the country, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley. With its documentary-like visuals and its intermingled cast of actors and nonprofessionals, Italians and their American liberators, this look at the struggles of different cultures to communicate and of people to live their everyday lives in extreme circumstances is equal parts charming sentiment and vivid reality. A long-missing treasure of Italian cinema, Paisan is available here for the first time in its full original release version.

Supplements Video introduction by Roberto Rossellini from 1963 Rossellini and the City, a new documentary on Rossellini's use of the urban landscape in these films, by film scholar Mark Shiel Excerpts from rarely seen videotaped discussions Rossellini had with faculty and students at Rice University in 1970 about his craft Into the Future, a new visual essay about the War Trilogy by film scholar Tag Gallagher

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