Un Oscar per il Signor Rossi (Italia/1960)
R.: Bruno Bozzetto. D.: 11’
Il Signor Rossi va a sciare (Italia/1963)
R.: Bruno Bozzetto. D.: 10’
Il Signor Rossi al mare (Italia/1964)
R.: Bruno Bozzetto. D.: 11’
Lilliput Put (selezione di episodi) (Svizzera-Italia/1980)
R.: Bruno Bozzetto. D.: 12’

A small middle-aged man, Mr. Rossi is a character created in the 1960s by the Italian animation master Bruno Bozzetto. Originally the protagonist of a series of self-contained shorts produced during the economic miracle, Mr. Rossi – with his hat and bewildered expression – represents the ordinary Italian thrust into post-war modernity. The films contained in this section, made between the 1960s and early 1970s, show our hero grappling with consumer culture, traffic, mass tourism, and increased leisure time. Through a simple but incisive graphic style and a surreal form of comedy that does not require dialogue, Bozzetto managed to create a universal character capable of recounting the small, everyday frustrations faced by modern man in an ironic vein. To accompany Mr. Rossi’s adventures are several episodes of the series Lilliput Put, made in 1980 for Televisione Svizzera Italiana. The protagonists are a variety of different creatures of the “miniworld” such as Spider Adrian, Caterpillar Arthur, Ant Veronica, Bee Erminia, and Little Worm Calogero who embody the vices and virtues of modern humanity.

Programme curated by Anita e Irene Bozzetto

Introduced Marco Bellano (Università di Padova)