His emergence as a director is considered to be his 1958 film '' La sfida '' ( '' The Challenge '' ) , based on the story of Camorra boss Pasquale Simonetti , known as '' Pasquale ' e Nola '' , and Pupetta Maresca . The realist nature of this film caused a stir in alluding to mafia control of the government . Of the film , Rosi himself said , " A director makes his first film with passion and without regard for what has gone before " . But David Shipman comments " ... but this is in fact a reworking of '' La Terra Trema '' , with the Visconti arias replaced by Zavattini 's naturalism . " The following year he directed '' The Magliari '' ( " I magliari " ) , in which the main character , an Italian immigrant in Germany , travels between Hamburg and Hanover and clashes with a Neapalitan mafioso boss over control the fabric market . Shipman writes : '' I magliari '' ( 1959 ) also concerns racketeers , and they are rival con-men ( Alberto Sordi , Renato Salvatori ) preying on their compatriots , immigrant workers in Germany . Sordi , like the protagonist in '' La sfida '' , manages to antagonise his colleagues more than his rivals – and this was to be a continuing theme in Rosi 's films . For the moment it means that both films end dispiritedly , and they are further weakened by an uncertain grasp of narrative – though that is partly hidden in the vigorous handling of individual scenes and the photography of Gianni Di Venanzo . Rosi was one of the central figures of the politicised post-neorealist 1960s and 1970s of Italian cinema , along with Gillo Pontecorvo , Pier Paolo Pasolini , the Taviani brothers , Ettore Scola and Valerio Zurlini . Dealing with a corrupt postwar Italy , Rosi 's movies take on controversial issues , such as '' Salvatore Giuliano '' , a film that won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 12th Berlin International Film Festival in 1962 . The film examined the life of the Sicilian gangster Giuliano , using the technique of a long series of flashbacks , one that became very popular thereafter . Shipman suggests that the film , with a " superb unity of the landscape and people of Sicily " ... " made Rosi 's international reputation . " In 1963 he directed Rod Steiger in the film '' Hands over the City '' ( " Le mani sulla città " ) , in which he courageously denounced the collusion between the various government departments and the crooked urban reconstruction programmes in Naples . The film was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival . The film , together with '' Salvatore Giuliano '' , is generally considered the first of his films concerning political issues , later to be expressed in the flexible and spontaneous acting of Gian Maria Volonté . Rosi himself explained the film 's purpose : " What interests me passionately is how a character behaves in the relation to the collectivity of society . I 'm not making a study of character but of society . To understand what a man is like in his private drama you must begin to understand him in his public life "
12th Berlin International Film Festival
12th Berlin International Film Festival
Francesco Rosi