Split in six episodes the film tells the story of the allied troops advance in the Peninsula during World War II, from the landing in Sicily up to the Padan plain, where the fights between partisans and German troops were raging... Continuing to define an essential style which become symptom of the reality he filmed, Rossellini signs one of Neorealism's crucial films and one of the most important titles in the history of cinema. "As far as the last part of Paisà was concerned, I had clearly in my mind the corpses of those men drifting on the water of the river Po, with that sign tied around their necks bearing the writing "Partisans". The river would drag those dead bodies for months. One could easily see several of them on the same day". (Roberto Rossellini)
