The second film that Pasolini directed is set, like the first, Accattone, in the world of his novels, the seamy outskirts of Rome. Anna Magnani stars as a prostitute who endeavors to begin a new life, settling in a new part of town with her grown son, played by non-professional actor Ettore Garofalo, one of Pasolini's discoveries. (Another, Franco Citti, who stars in Accattone and in his brother Sergio Citti's Ostia, see February 11 and 23, plays Magnani's ex-husband.) Pasolini captures the language and feel of the ‘low life' milieu, and the dispirited reality that haunts Magnani's efforts to rise above prostitution to a petit bourgeois existence. Pasolini, who rarely chose professional actors for his films, considered the choice of Magnani a flawed one, “as I choose actors for what they are and not for what they pretend to be.... I wanted to bring out the ambiguity of subproletarian life with a petit bourgeois superstructure.... Anna Magnani is a woman who was born and has lived as a petite bourgeoise and then as an actress....” Note: Mamma Roma will be shown without English subtitles.