New Delhi, July 20 -- Vittorio De Sica walks on to the set, a vast expanse of sand. Handsome, hair perfect, dressed in a suit, he graciously acknowledges the crew clapping, and says, "Please, save the applause for when I'm finished." He sets up the shot: Moses leading the slaves out of Egypt. As a crane lifts his chair up, he says through the megaphone, "I need more sand in the desert," an instruction his assistant dutifully repeats.

This is the kind of the joke you'd expect in a film written by Neil Simon and starring Peter Sellers. But what might surprise some is that After the Fox is directed by De Sica himself. In the 1940s, he was one of the central figures of the neorealist movement in Italian cinema, which prioritised location sho...