Discourses of impegno and Italian colonial legacies: Reassessing times, spaces and voices in documentaries on (post)colonial mobility

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how Hotel Abyssinie (Plattner, 1996), Aulò. Roma Postcoloniale (Brioni, Guida and Chiscuzzu 2012) and Asmarina (Maglio and Paolos, 2015) explore the entangled relationship between colonial memories, migrations and belongings in contemporary Italy. Since each film addresses the temporality and spatiality of colonial legacies, the assessment of the use of old materials (mainly pictures and found footage) will enable the reflection on the complicated Italian colonial memories; this strand also deals with the analysis of the spaces of (post)colonial interaction through the concept of heterotopia. These artistic strategies, together with some other stylistic choices, will be regarded as aiming to engender either narratives or counter-narratives within the discourse of civic engagement, or postmodern impegno, that each documentary unfolds, and to which it conforms. In so doing, these documentaries stand as representative of an artistic production that is challenging the surreptitiously monolithic image of Italian identity.