The film documentary “Italy after the war”, wholly made using archive material (1945-1948) from Istituto Luce, recounts the birth of the First Republic, and the way in which Italians reacted to the havoc of the war. A great deal of the film is taken up with day-today life and the problems of ordinary people, the hopes and the plans for the reconstruction of a nation after so many massacres and so much destruction.