faire attitude regarding what seemed at  the time trivial matters, Alessandrini and screenwriter Anton  Majano, decided to simply use the novel and base their screenplay on  it. Whilst he was working on another film (_Nozze di sangue_ (qv)),  Scalera Film, the production company, asked several other writers to  rewrite scenes and dialogues from the existing screenplay, but the  final draft ended up being so different from Alessandrini and  Majanos original screenplay that they both decided to start  shooting without a script and just follow the book. They wrote the  scenes at night and handed them over to the actors in the morning.  As weeks went by it soon became evident that it would take longer  than the customary three weeks of shooting to finish this film and  that there was also enough material for two films. But nothing was  said to the actors, as they probably would have requested to be paid  double. Despite the fact that Rands book is an overt criticism of  the communist regime and ideology, the fascist Ministry of Culture  soon became aware that Alessandrini was also using the film as a  platform to criticise the Mussolini government. The shooting was  interrupted several times by fascist officials who demanded to see  the rushes, but Alessandrini had two edited copies of the film, one  that would be in line with the fascist ideology and another one  which reflected his own vision of the story. In September 1942,  after nearly five months of shooting, the film was completed and  presented at the Venice Film Festival where it received the highest  accolade and was awarded the Volpe Cup. It went on general release  in November of the same year as two separate films, "Noi Vivi" and  _Addio Kira! (1942)_ (qv) and proved to be a resounding success with  the Italian public who regarded it as an indirect indictment of the  Mussolini regime. But the authorities soon got wind of this and the  film was banned after five months, all copies seized and ordered to  be destroyed but fortunately one negative was kept and hidden. After  the war, Scalera Film approached Ayn Rand to secure the literary  rights to the film so it could be re