Bitter Rice

Bitter Rice
Original theatrical poster
Italian	Riso amaro
Directed by	Giuseppe De Santis
Screenplay by	Corrado Alvaro Giuseppe De Santis Carlo Lizzani Carlo Musso Ivo Perilli Gianni Puccini
Story by	Giuseppe De Santis Carlo Lizzani Gianni Puccini
Produced by	Dino De Laurentiis
Starring	Vittorio Gassman Doris Dowling Silvana Mangano Raf Vallone Checco Rissone Carlo Mazzarella
Cinematography	Otello Martelli
Edited by	Gabriele Varriale
Music by	Goffredo Petrassi
Production company	Lux Film
Distributed by	Lux Film
Release date	7 September 1949 (1949-09-07)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

Bitter Rice (Italian: Riso amaro [ˈriːso aˈmaːro, ˈriːzo -]) is a 1949 Italian neorealist crime drama film directed and co-written by Giuseppe De Santis, produced by Dino De Laurentiis, and starring Vittorio Gassman, Doris Dowling, Silvana Mangano, and Raf Vallone. The story follows a pair of fugitives, who hide among the rice fields of northern Italy. The Italian title of the film is based on a pun; since the Italian word riso can mean either "rice" or "laughter", riso amaro can be taken to mean either "bitter laughter" or "bitter rice".

Released by Lux Film, Bitter Rice was a commercial success in Europe and the United States. It was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for the 1950 Academy Award for Best Story.

In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."^[1]