Killing in the Name of Love. Violence against Women in Italy

Abstract

23 November 2006 was the international Day on Violence against Women. It was also the day that the Italian National Statistics Institute (ISTAT) published its Report on Violence and maltreatments against women in and outside the family. The report covered a five year period of research, and documented some alarming statistics,revealing that women in Italy are increasingly more vulnerable as targets of psychological and physical violence inflicted by their male partners and spouses. This widespread contemporary social phenomenon has been called ‘femicide’. In order to inform and educate the audience, since 2007, RAI 3 has broadcast Amore criminale/Criminal Love, a weekly series featuring cases of women killed or severely injured by their husbands or partners. Furthermore, in 2012 RAI 1 produced the mini-series Mai per amore/Never for Love. Four films: Troppo amore/Too Much Love directed by Liliana Cavani; Ragazze in web/Girls in Web and Helena & Glory by Marco Pontecorvo; and La fuga di Teresa/Theresa’s Escape by Margarethe von Trotta, were presented to raise awareness of the escalating incidence of the murder of women. The purpose of this article is first to elucidate the phenomenon of femicide in Italy; and second, to examine how RAI and Cavani’s, Pontecorvo’s and von Trotta’s visually dramatic narratives address the cultural and sociological factors related to these forms of violence against women in Italy.