Angelina

Angelina is the mother of five in one of the poor districts on the edge of Rome. She draws no line between her own troubles and the neighbourhood's. When a black marketeer holds back food, she gathers the women behind her and goes straight at him. Then she leads the move into the new flats standing empty. Without noticing it she finds herself at the head of a popular movement, and ends up elected to parliament. Luigi Zampa's film takes the housing and food shortages of postwar Italy as its direct subject. Anna Magnani won the best actress award at Venice for the part, and Zampa was nominated for the Golden Lion. The telling makes Angelina neither a saint nor a hero; once she has won she is still the same difficult, loud woman she always was.