Mario Bonnard's feature film La Città Dolente could hardly be described unambiguously. We are witnessing a work that, in the years when it was filmed, plowed the fallow ground from a technical point of view with a skillful combination of documentary and feature film, while at the same time there is a distinct propaganda note in it, which is already one-sided in its definition. The film, made in 1948, is important, because it is the only one that tackled the extremely sensitive subject of the exodus of Italians from Istria in 1947.

Due to the political situation in Pula, the filmmakers had no choice and were forced to shoot on Italian territory. The interiors were recreated in Rome's Cinecitta, and an approximation of the Istrian landscape was found in nearby Civitavecchia. On the other hand, the documentary material that was used and skillfully edited was filmed in Pula, where Gianni Alberto Vitrotti and Enrico Moretti shot the documentary "Addio Mia Cara Pola" a year earlier.

The work, the script of which was co-written by the cult director Federico Fellini, did not reach a large audience when it was released in 1949 and was soon forgotten, which can also be attributed to the sensitive subject of the film. The film on 35 mm tape, which was donated by the production company Scalera Film to the Roman Istituto Luce was restored to its former glory by Cineteca del Friuli in 2006.