Franco Rosso (29 August 1941 – 9 December 2016)[1][2] was an Italian-born film producer and director based in England.
[5][6] He was assistant on Ken Loach's 1969 film Kes,[7] and Rosso's subsequent career as a filmmaker encompassed feature films, as well as television documentaries and series, working as an editor, producer, director and writer.
[8] Following early productions at the Royal College of Art, Rosso made his notable directorial debut with the documentary The Mangrove Nine, about the resistance to police attacks on the popular Mangrove restaurant in the early 1970s, scripted by John La Rose and narrated by Andrew Salkey.
[9][10] According to Martin Stellman's obituary of Rosso, The Mangrove Nine film was "so uncompromising in its portrayal of police racism that the BBC delayed its transmission.
For several years afterwards, Rosso could not get work with the corporation and firmly believed he had been blacklisted.