Gianfranco Rosi: Firmament of the Real

Among a small handful of working filmmakers to have taken home top prizes at two of the three major European film festivals, Gianfranco Rosi—who will visit Metrograph on the occasion of this complete retrospective—is among the most distinguished living practitioners of nonfiction film, a “psychogeographer” [The Guardian] whose process of embedding himself in the communities he documents renders works of rare candor and intimacy, whether their subjects are cartel killers (El Sicario, Room 164), Italian islanders experiencing the fallout of the European migrant crisis (Fire at Sea), or everyday people going about their business in the war zones of the Middle East (Notturno). A comprehensive overview of a body of work that observes and reports, with a patient, unblinking eye, on the tumultuous world we live in today.