Filmed in World War II.
Censored by Mussolini.
Lost for 26 years.
Restored with Ayn Rand.
Now, We the Living (1942) is coming to Australian cinemas.
“We The Living is a one-of-a-kind film, brought back - through the work of heroes - from the brink of extinction.
Since its masterful, painstaking restoration by Duncan in 2022, it has premiered around the world, selling out cinemas from Kyiv to New York. Now, it will sell out cinemas here.
We are honoured to bring this historic masterpiece to an Australian audience for the first time.”
- Maxim Bishev | Founder, ACO
“Here’s a film of real humanity, a glorious piece of romantic drama.”
- Paul LePetit, Sunday Telegraph
The Casablanca of wartime Italy...It's a superior epic romance, a masterpiece.
— Donald Lyons/Details
We the Living Official Trailer | 80th Anniversary Restoration
We the Living is Ayn Rand’s first novel, set in Soviet Russia in the years after the Bolshevik Revolution. It follows Kira Argounova, a fiercely independent young woman struggling to build a life of her own under a regime that demands the individual’s submission to the state. At its heart, it is a story about love, freedom, and the struggle to remain alive—in both body and spirit—under totalitarianism.
A colossal love story...masterfully constructed plot.
—Miami News
with Duncan Scott
In this podcast episode with Duncan Scott, we explore the unlikely survival of We the Living: its production in Fascist Italy, its suppression and near-destruction, its rediscovery in Italy decades later, the restoration process with Ayn Rand’s involvement, and the stories behind the scenes. It’s a conversation about lost art, political power, and why this film still deserves an audience.
Watch the remastered film trailer.
We the Living
WE THE LIVING qualifies in every respect as film treasure...dazzling performances... Director Alessandrini brilliantly blends glamour, romance, politics, intrigue and danger...this is a film that avoids the predictable every step of the way...one of the best movies of the year.
— Mike McGrady/New York Newsday
“The only hero she had known was a Viking whose story she had read as a child; a Viking whose eyes never looked farther than the point of his sword, but there was no boundary for the point of his sword; a Viking who walked through life, breaking barriers and reaping victories, who walked through ruins while the sun made a crown over his head, but he walked, light and straight, without noticing its weight; a Viking who laughed at kings, who laughed at priests, who looked at heaven only when he bent for a drink over a mountain brook and there, over-shadowing the sky, he saw his own picture; a Viking who lived but for the joy and the wonder and the glory of the god that was himself.”
- Ayn Rand, We the Living.