The Menil Collection The Menil Collection

The Menil Collection and Rice Cinema co-present an outdoor screening of Roberto Rossellini’s neorealist war drama, Paisan (1946, 126 minutes). Made in the aftermath of WWII and with an intermingled cast of actors and nonprofessionals, the film explores the struggles of different cultures to communicate, and of people to live their everyday lives in extreme circumstances.

The event is organized in conjunction with the closing weekend of the Menil Drawing Institute’s exhibition, Silent Revolutions: Italian Drawing from the Twentieth Century, on view through April 11.

A subsequent screening of rare archival footage of Roberto Rossellini speaking at Rice Media Center will be presented at Rice Cinema on Saturday, April 10, at 7 p.m. Rossellini was invited to Houston by John and Dominique de Menil in 1970 to help develop the film program at Rice. Excerpts presented are courtesy of the Menil Archives. RSVPs will be required for attendance at Rice Cinema on April 10, with limited seating available. For further information and to RSVP please visit cinema.rice.edu.

The outdoor screening will take place on the museum’s front lawn at 1533 Sul Ross Street, between Mandell and Mulberry Streets. Please bring your own picnic blankets or lawn chairs; seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Guests are required to abide by the Menil’s COVID-19 safety protocols by maintaining social distance (at least 6 feet between each household) and wearing a face mask that covers your nose and mouth unless eating or drinking. Additional Menil green space policies apply. Further information regarding accessibility and parking can be found here. Please note that in the event of inclement weather, the program will be held on Sunday, April 11, at 8 p.m.

Plan ahead and visit the Menil’s exhibition Silent Revolutions: Italian Drawings from the Twentieth Century, curated by Edouard Kopp and Irina Zucca Alessandrelli, before the screening by reserving your free timed entry. Silent Revolutions is the first large-scale survey of twentieth-century Italian drawings mounted in the United States. The exhibition, presenting works largely selected from the Collezione Ramo in Milan, features 70 drawings by Umberto Boccioni, Alighiero Boetti, Giorgio de Chirico, Lucio Fontana, Jannis Kounellis, Maria Lai, Carol Rama, and others. The works on view are augmented with several drawings from the Menil’s own collection.