Miracle in Milan

Although it is questionable whether this picture has the simple, universal appeal of an old Chaplin film, for instance, or whether its meanings are as sharp as some may think, it is certainly a lively entertainment and should be a subject of discussion for months to come.

New York Times

Archive - Festival 35
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Italy 1951
100 minutes
Italian
Subtitles in Hebrew, English

Once upon a time, an old woman discovered a baby in her cabbage patch. She brought up the child and, when she died, the boy, Toto, entered an orphanage. Toto leaves the orphanage a happy young man, still innocent at heart, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up as the guest of a vagabond living in a slum on the outskirts of the city.

Winner of the Golden Palm in Cannes in 1951, Miracle in Milan is one of the great classics of world cinema, an intellectual fairy-tale and a commentary on real economic suffering and destitution.

Filmography: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970), Marriage Italian Style (1964), Bicycle Thieves (1949).