Remembering the Queer Exiles of San Domino: In Italia sono tutti maschi (2008) and The Red Tree (2018)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Homosexuality was both silenced and persecuted during Mussolini’s regime. The multifaceted silencing of homosexuality has contributed to the ongoing difficulty of gathering and preserving testimonies which remember this persecution. This article explores two contemporary semi-fictional testimonial works which grapple with this silencing and remember queer people in Fascist Italy: the graphic novel In Italia sono tutti maschi by Luca de Santis and Sara Colaone (2008), and the short film The Red Tree (2018) by Paul Rowley and De Santis. These works rely on elements of survivors’ testimonies but simultaneously refer to cross-cultural and trans-historical events, including the AIDS crisis and gun violence. Spurred by queer and anti-canonical methodologies, I tease out the layers of memory that these works bring forth. Whilst they may draw criticism for their ‘relativisation’ of the Holocaust, these works implicate the twenty-first-century reader in remembrance.