Il Ruscello di Ripasottile was filmed (…) outside beside a brook near Palidoro, an area (…) in the Ladispoli hinterland, while the indoor shots took place at the Ittiogenico fish biology institute in Rome. (…) This documentary was full of tricks and strategic devices (…). The scene where the pikes swim upstream was solved at the institute, in the long tanks it had for fish breeding: creating a strong current going against the pikes so that the fish, dragged by the water, would be thrown against the wall at the end. However, since pikes tend to swim against the surge by nature and as they get excited when they feel the water moving freely or flowing, they reacted by trying to overcome the current, swimming on this sort of ‘water conveyor belt’. A backdrop wrapped around two rollers was left to run behind the tanks and filmed with still pan or dolly shots. This managed to create the impression that the pikes were swimming upstream. The crow scenes were achieved by attaching a branch to the camera lens hood, with the shots cut at the crow’s feet. Rossellini himself took the camera from Lombardi when this process was tackled, creating the impression that the crow was flying from one side to the other, with a pan shot effect. (…) From the handmade air of Fantasia sottomarina (Undersea Fantasy), we move directly to a documentary able to rely on significant means and filmed at the most important cinema facilities. Rossellini had already joined the cinema circle through these documentaries and – somewhat strange in light of what he would later do – he embarked on his Il Ruscello di Ripasottile Ritrovati & Restaurati / Recovered & Restored 29 career with documentaries that were difficult to use in the era’s context of rhetoric, and therefore outside of the official circuit portraying the events, news and initiatives of the Fascist regime, or that in which artistic heritage was appraised rhetorically.

Stefano Roncoroni, Il “Primo Rossellini”, in Roberto Rossellini, edited by Gian Piero Brunetta and Edoardo Bruno, Ministero degli Esteri, Roma 1980