Internazionalismo europeo nel cinema italiano del secondo dopoguerra: il caso de Lo sconosciuto di San Marino (M. Waszyński, 1948)

The essay examines The Unknown Man of San Marino (1948), directed by Michał Waszyński, written by Cesare Zavattini, and starring Vittorio De Sica and Anna Magnani. Shot in the microstate of San Marino, neutral during the war and a refuge for displaced people, the essay positions the film as an early example of cinematic internationalism at the dawn of European integration, which would culminate in the 1957 Treaties of Rome. Its pacifist and transnational ethos emerges not only at the narrative and symbolic level but also through its production history, from Waszyński’s cosmopolitan biography of exile to the involvement of the theatrical company attached to the Polish II Corps, active in the liberation of Italy along the Gothic Line. Largely neglected by critics and now almost forgotten, the film offers a utopian vision of interclass and transnational solidarity in a Europe rising from the ruins yet soon to be divided by the Cold War.