Roman Polanskiis a Polish (Polacco) film director, producer, writer and actor. He was born in Paris in 1933, but the family went back to Poland just two years before the beginning of the war and were all sent to the Krakow ghetto. Captured by the Germans his father was sent to Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, and survived the war, his mother was sent to Auschwitz and died. When he was only seven, Roman saw the capture of his parents, escaped the ghetto, survived the war pretending (facendo finta di) to be Catholic . He suffered ill treatments (maltrattamenti), he lived his life as a tramp (vagabondo), always hidden and eating whatever (qualunque cosa) he could steal or find. At 12 years old, some Nazi soldiers who forced him to hold targets (tenere bersagli) while they shot at them (mentre loro sparavano). At the end of the war he met his father and could attend (frequentare) a technical school, but soon he revealed his attitude and started as an actor and appeared in Andrzej Wajda’s Generazione (1955) before studying at the Lodz Film School. His early short films – Two men and a Wardrobe (1958), Le gros et le maigre (1961) and Mammals (1962) – revealed his black humor and interest in bizarre human relationships. His real debut , Il coltello nell’acqua (Nóż w wodzie, 1962), was also the first Polish movie not committed (non connesso) with the war and get an Oscar nomination for best foreign film (miglior film straniero). Then Polanski left for France and started his collaboration with scriptwriter, Gérard Brach, with whom he made Repulsion (1965), Cul-de-sac(1966) and The Fearless. These successes were followed by Vampire Killers or: Pardon Me, Madam, but Your Teeth Are in My Neck (also as Dance of the Vampires) and the psychological thriller Rosemary’s Baby (both 1968), shot in Hollywood. But after the cruel murder (massacro) of his pregnant (in attesa di un bambino) wife Sharon Tate, by the terrible Manson gang in 1969, he went back to Europe. Back to Hollywood, in 1974, he made Macbeth (1971), Chinatown (1974). Again misfortune stroke (sfortuna colpì) Polanski in America: he was accused of the rape (stupro) of a 13-year old girl and was forced to leave (obbligato a lasciare) the States again. Other successful films were Tess (1979), awarded several Oscars , Pirates (1986), The Pianist(2002), Oliver Twist (2005) and Carnage (2011).