In the postwar era, as American movie producers flocked to Europe for its cheaper costs and dramatic locales, Italian director Franco Rossi took his crew to Los Angeles. In Smog, an Italian attorney (Enrico Maria Salerno) has time to kill on a layover in LA and happens upon a community of expatriate Italians who provide him an impromptu tour of the city. To capture mid-century Los Angeles, Rossi shot at 80 different locations, filming in and around some of the city’s most iconic architectural landmarks. Though it never received a US theatrical release, Smog has achieved cult status over the decades for its images of the then newly dedicated Theme Building at LAX, LA’s airport; the Pierre Koenig-designed Stahl Residence, a Case Study House in the Hollywood Hills; and the Carolina Pines Jr. restaurant at Sunset and La Brea, along with the anonymous car lots, oil fields, and diners in between. As the attorney drifts around town, he grows dismayed at his compatriots’ embrace of the local mores and customs, victims of what Rossi described as a “spiritual smog.” (Franco Rossi, 1962, Italian with English subtitles, DCP, 101 minutes) 

The screenings this weekend are the final part of the sixth Mid-Atlantic edition of the Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour film festival, taking place across the Washington area from March 4–8, 2026.  These events are a collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute at the Embassy of Italy and the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland. Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour is an initiative of the Italian program and the program in cinema and media studies at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park, in partnership with the Bologna Film Archive (Cineteca di Bologna). Special thanks to Mauro Resmini and Hester Baer of UMD, and Guy Borlee, artistic director of the film festival.  

Smog was restored by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna and the UCLA Film and Television Archive in collaboration with Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. from the 35mm original picture negative, a 35mm composite fine grain master positive and a 35mm optical track negative. Restoration funded by the Golden Globe Foundation. Laboratory services by L’Immagine Ritrovata Group, Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services - Picture. Special thanks to Daphne Dentz, George Feltenstein, Craig Johnson.