Franco Rosso
{{Short description|British film director (1941–2016)}}
{{similar names|Franco Rossi (disambiguation){{!}}Franco Rossi}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox person
| name =
| image =
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| birth_date = {{birth date|1941|8|29|df=y}}
| birth_place = Turin, Piedmont, Italy
| death_date = {{death date and age|2016|12|9|1941|8|29|df=y}}
| education = Camberwell School of Art
Royal College of Art
| occupation = Film producer and director
| years_active =
| notable_works = Babylon (1980)
| partner =
| children =
}}
Franco Rosso (29 August 1941 – 9 December 2016)Bill Douglas Centre, [http://www.uncarved.org/babylon/archives/467 "Franco Rosso 1942-2016"], Babylon, 27 December 2016.Martin Stellman, [https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jan/02/franco-rosso-obituary "Franco Rosso obituary"], The Guardian, 2 January 2017. was an Italian-born film producer and director based in England. He is known for making films about Black British culture, and in particular for the 1980 cult film Babylon, about Black Jamaican youth in south London,Miguel Cullen, [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/30-years-on-franco-rosso-on-why-babylons-burning-2131129.html "30 years on: Franco Rosso on why Babylon's burning"], The Independent, 11 November 2010. which was backed by the National Film Finance Corporation.[http://omarsfilmblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/babylon-dir-franco-rosso-1980-uk.html "BABYLON (Dir. Franco Rosso, 1980, UK) - Streets of Fire"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161230160221/http://omarsfilmblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/babylon-dir-franco-rosso-1980-uk.html |date=30 December 2016 }}, Ellipsis, 17 May 2011.
Life and career
Rosso was born in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, but grew up in London, where his parents (who had been Fiat workers in Turin) brought him when he was aged eight. After attending comprehensive school in Battersea, Rosso went on to Camberwell School of Art and the Royal College of Art (at which he was a contemporary of Ian Dury).[http://www.uncarved.org/babylon/people/franco-rosso/ "Franco Rosso"], Babylon website.[http://www.uncarved.org/babylon/features/franco-rosso-and-brinsley-ford-speak-to-the-new-musical-express/ "Chris Salewicz meets two of the people behind the controversial 'Babylon' – Director Franco Rosso and Aswad's Brinsley Dan"], Franco Rosso and Brinsley Ford speak to the NME.
He was assistant on Ken Loach's 1969 film Kes,Simon W. Golding, [https://books.google.com/books?id=LbzABQAAQBAJ&pg=PT206 Life After Kes], Andrews UK Limited, 2014. 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.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120805091007/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b9ee51ed5 "Franco Rosso"], BFI. 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 and narrated by Andrew Salkey.[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402359/ "The Mangrove Nine"], IMDb.Dave Phillips, [http://www.uncarved.org/babylon/features/franco-rosso-interviewed-for-new-britain-fanzine/ "Interview with Franco Rosso"], New Britain, mid-1990s. According to Martin Stellman'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 Babylon,Stephen Bourne, [https://books.google.com/books?id=2VnLeHIVID8C&pg=PA202 Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television], A&C Black, 2005, p. 202. 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 – Royal College of Art (director)[https://web.archive.org/web/20220204092054/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b75f13fe9 "Rainbows Are Insured against Old Age (1967)"], BFI.
- 1968: Dream Weaver – Royal College of Art (director)
- 1973: The Mangrove Nine – documentary about the Mangrove Nine (director; co-producer Horace Ové, scripted by John La Rose)
- 1979: Dread Beat an' Blood – documentary for Omnibus (BBC television), featuring Linton Kwesi Johnson (director)[http://bufvc.ac.uk/dvdfind/index.php/title/av69539 "Dread, Beat an' Blood"], Learning on Screen, British Universities Film & Video Council.
- 1980: Babylon – 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 (producer)
- 1985: Sixty-Four Day Hero: A Boxer's Tale (director)
- 1986: Struggle for Stonebridge – documentary for 40 Minutes, BBC Two (director)
- 1988: The Nature of the Beast (director)
- 1991: Lucha Libre – for television (director)
- 1995: Money Drugs Lock-up (director)
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|0744480}}
{{Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosso, Franco}}
Category:Alumni of Camberwell College of Arts
Category:Alumni of the Royal College of Art
Category:British film directors
Category:Film people from London