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Franco Rosso (29 August 1941 – 9 December 2016)Bill Douglas Centre, "Franco Rosso 1942-2016", Babylon, 27 December 2016.Martin Stellman, "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, "30 years on: Franco Rosso on why Babylon's burning", The Independent, 11 November 2010. which was backed by the National Film Finance Corporation. "BABYLON (Dir. Franco Rosso, 1980, UK) - Streets of Fire" , Ellipsis, 17 May 2011.
He was assistant on Ken Loach's 1969 film Kes,Simon W. Golding, 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. "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. "The Mangrove Nine", IMDb.Dave Phillips, "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, 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".
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> "Rainbows Are Insured against Old Age (1967)", BFI.
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