Mamma Roma

Mamma Roma is an Italian drama from 1962, written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It was his second film as director, following Accattone the previous year. Anna Magnani plays the title character, a woman who has spent years working as a prostitute in Rome and now wants to leave that life behind. She sets up a fruit and vegetable stall in a market and brings her sixteen-year-old son Ettore, played by Ettore Garofolo, to live with her; the boy was raised elsewhere and knows nothing about how his mother earned her living. Her former pimp Carmine, played by Franco Citti, still has a hold over her, and the neighbourhood the two of them move into has its own pressures and dangers. The cast also includes Silvana Corsini and Luisa Loiano.

Pasolini wrote the screenplay himself, as he had for his first film, and Alfredo Bini produced it for Arco Film. The film runs 110 minutes.

On TMDB it holds a rating of 7.9 out of 10 from 446 votes, and a film critics' rating of 7.9 out of 10 from 19 reviews, so the two broadly agree. Pasolini went on to make thirteen further films, the next being La Rabbia in 1963.