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Domenica D'Agosto was the first feature-length effort from Italian documentary filmmaker Luciano Emmeri. The film keeps within the accepted guidelines of Italian neorealism, albeit with a surfeit of warmth and humor. Emmeri details a typical midsummer Sunday in a seaside resort. A cast of professional actors mingles with carefully chosen nonprofessionals to illustrate a series of perceptive vignettes about big-city vacationers. Such is the consummate skill of the director and his screenwriters (including the ubiquitous Cesare Zavattini) that it's difficult for the audience to determine where the scripted scenes end and the "real" scenes begin.