Franco Rosso (29 August 1941 – 9 December 2016)Bill Douglas Centre
"Franco Rosso 1942-2016"
''Babylon'', 27 December 2016.Martin Stellman
"Franco Rosso obituary"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 2 January 2017. was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

-born film producer and director based in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He is known for making films about

Black British Black British people are a multi-ethnic group of British citizens of either African or Afro-Caribbean descent.Gadsby, Meredith (2006), ''Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival'', University of Missouri Press, pp. 76–7 ...

culture, and in particular for the 1980 cult film ''

Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...

'', about Black Jamaican youth in south London,Miguel Cullen
"30 years on: Franco Rosso on why Babylon's burning"
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 11 November 2010. which was backed by the

National Film Finance Corporation The National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC) was a film funding agency in the United Kingdom in operation from 1949 until 1985. The NFFC was established by the Cinematograph Film Production (Special Loans) Act 1949, and further enhanced by the ...

Life and career

Rosso was born in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, Italy, but grew up in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, where his parents (who had been

Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...

workers in Turin) brought him when he was aged eight. After attending

comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is res ...

Battersea Battersea is a large district in south London, part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross and extends along the south bank of the River Thames. It includes the Battersea Park. History Batter ...

, Rosso went on to

Camberwell School of Art Camberwell College of Arts is a public tertiary art school in Camberwell, in London, England. It is one of the six constituent colleges of the University of the Arts London. It offers further and higher education programmes, including postgradu ...

and the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

(at which he was a contemporary of

Ian Dury Ian Robins Dury (12 May 1942 27 March 2000) was a British singer, songwriter and actor who rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and new wave era of rock music. He was the lead singer and lyricist of Ian Dury and the Blockheads an ...

)."Franco Rosso"
''Babylon'' website. He was assistant on

Ken Loach Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is a British film director and screenwriter. His socially critical directing style and socialist ideals are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (''Poor Cow'', 1967), homelessne ...

's 1969 film '' Kes'', and Rosso's subsequent career as a filmmaker encompassed feature films, as well as television documentaries and series, working as an editor, producer, director and writer. Following early productions at the Royal College of Art, Rosso made his notable directorial debut with the documentary '' The Mangrove Nine'', about the resistance to police attacks on the popular Mangrove restaurant in the early 1970s, scripted by

John La Rose John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

and narrated by

Andrew Salkey Andrew Salkey (30 January 1928 – 28 April 1995) was a Jamaican novelist, poet, children's books writer and journalist of Jamaicans, Jamaican and Panamanian origin. He was born in Panama but raised in Jamaica, moving to Britain in the 1952 to pu ...

.Dave Phillips
"Interview with Franco Rosso"
''New Britain'', mid-1990s. According to

Martin Stellman Martin Stellman (London, July 28, 1948) is a British screenwriter and director best known for creating and writing '' The Interpreter'', starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, and co-writing with Franc Roddam the 1979 British cult classic ''Quadro ...

's obituary of Rosso, ''The Mangrove Nine'' film was "so uncompromising in its portrayal of police racism that the BBC delayed its transmission. For several years afterwards, Rosso could not get work with the corporation and firmly believed he had been blacklisted." In 1981, Rosso won an ''Evening Standard'' Award for Most Promising Film-Maker for his drama ''

'', which was called by ''New Britain'' fanzine "one of the best British films ever made, not just one of the best 'Black' or 'Youth' films".

Selected filmography

* 1967: ''Rainbows Are Insured against Old Age'' –

(director) * 1968: ''Dream Weaver'' – Royal College of Art (director) * 1973: ''The Mangrove Nine'' — documentary about the

Mangrove Nine The Mangrove Nine were a group of British black activists tried for inciting a riot at a 1970 protest against the police targeting of The Mangrove, a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill, West London. Their trial lasted 55 days and involved vari ...

(director; co-producer

Horace Ové Sir Horace Shango Ové (born 1936) is a Trinidad and Tobago-born British filmmaker, photographer, painter and writer. One of the leading black independent filmmakers to emerge in Britain in the post-war period, Ové holds the ''Guinness World R ...

, scripted by

) * 1979: ''Dread Beat an' Blood'' — documentary for '' Omnibus'' (

BBC television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

), featuring

Linton Kwesi Johnson Linton Kwesi Johnson (born 24 August 1952), also known as LKJ, is a Jamaica-born, British-based dub poet and activist. In 2002 he became the second living poet, and the only black one, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series. His p ...

(director)"Dread, Beat an' Blood"
Learning on Screen, British Universities Film & Video Council. * 1980: ''

'' — drama (director, writer) * 1983: ''Ian Dury'' – biopic (director) * 1983: ''Salt on a Snake's Tail'' – BBC TV (director) * 1984: ''The Caribbean in Crisis: The West Indies One Year after the Grenada Invasion'' – documentary for

Channel Four Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service i ...

(producer) * 1985: ''Sixty-Four Day Hero: A Boxer's Tale'' (director) * 1986: ''Struggle for Stonebridge'' — documentary for '' 40 Minutes'',

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

(director) * 1988: ''The Nature of the Beast'' (director) * 1991: ''Lucha Libre'' — for television (director) * 1995: ''Money Drugs Lock-up'' (director)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rosso, Franco 1941 births 2016 deaths Alumni of Camberwell College of Arts Alumni of the Royal College of Art British film directors Film people from London Italian emigrants to the United Kingdom Italian film directors