NOTE: It seems the description from Lionsgate's website (above) is fraught with inaccuracies as noted by fellow DVDBeaver ListServ member Tag Gallagher:

Roberto Rossellini shot his first film at the invitation of Vittorio Mussolini, son of the Italian dictator. Not true.  His first two films were shorts about fish.  His first feature, La nave bianca, had no connection to Vittorio Mussolini.  His second feature, Un pilota ritorna, was based on a story by Vittorio Mussolini and with a company of which VM was the nominal head but in actuality had nothing to do with (because he was fighting a war at the time); he certainly did not "invite" Rossellini (although he did invite Renoir to come to Italy).  Rossellini's connection to the production company was through its actual head, Franco Riganti, a friend from boyhood, who also backed some of DeSica's first films and gave Fellini his first work.
Even his early films had a profound effect: Rossellini was credited with launching the Italian Neorealism movement that used non-actors and real locations to showcase the plight of working-class Italians.
 Not true.  First, there was no movement: the term "neo-realism" was an invention of critics AFTER all the films had been made, and there was never a movement, a collective, or anything of the sort.  The various filmmakers later dumped into this ism had radically different notions about what they were doing and were not professionally associated.
    Second, Rossellini did not use non-actors.  Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi were the biggest boxoffice stars of the time (Open City), and it was their presence which enabled him to get financing; most of the others came from Italian theater.  Paisan was cast with off-Broadway American professional actors. 
    Third, real locations had always been used in Italian cinema.  But the problem was that it cost many many times more to shoot on location.  Paisan was the most expensive Italian film of the 1940s and Bicycle Thieves was almost as bad.  Moreover, almost all of Open City was shot in a studio, and part of Paisan was as well.
    Fourth, none of Rossellini's films ever showcased working-class Italians, let alone their plight.  The two exceptions would include Dov'è, which was made long after so-called "neo-realism" was over, and the secondary characters in Europe '51, which is chiefly about uppermiddleclass people.
 Legendary French directors including Andre Bazin, Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard also called him the godfather of the French New Wave style.
No one until (this description) ever called him the godfather of a style, and I don't think any of these three ever actually called him the godfather of the New Wave (which was far closer to being a movement, and had far more intimate connections between the principals, than "neo-realism," which never existed in  any way, shape or form).  The godfather title was bestowed by others...

(Thanks kindly Tag!)