In this article, based on the evidence brought by TRAFFIC - Tracing American and Foreign Funds in Italian Cinema (1945-1962), a research project we were involved in the last few years and focused on the Italian case, we advance a set of methodological and operational hypotheses for the study of international relations in post-war cinema, developed in dialogue with the contributions collected in this issue. Our central claim is that a multipolar model of productive, distributive, and cultural relations was in place, in the years surrounding the Second World War, with timelines and durations that varied across geographical contexts and in relation to the specific challenges faced by different film industries. This model places under strain a fixed conception of centre-periphery relations, already questioned in transnational approaches to European cinema, as well as a monolithic understanding of the cultural and industrial dominance of American cinema, which nevertheless remained the key reference point in the global system.After having summarized the scientific discussion on transnational cinemas to determine which elements can be retained and what new tools are needed to outline and study what we consider a multipolar system, in the following section we delve into the Italian case, focusing particularly on the trade association ANICA. During the post-war period, ANICA was structured as an interface between different systems, managing current practices such as export and co-production instructions and film credit guarantees, as well as strategic actions such as defining agreements and conducting periodic revisions. Two specific examples relating to the definition of exchange and co-production agreements with the film industries of Mexico and Yugoslavia illustrate ANICA’s concrete functioning in relation to other national and foreign entities, including public and private stakeholders. Finally, we reflect on the concept of borders as a key element in the relationship between film systems and infrastructures.

In this interview, which was conducted in January 2025, Valerio Ruiz reflects on Elvira Notari’s pioneering role in silent Italian cinema. Ruiz’s new documentary film, Elvira Notari (2024), celebrates Italy’s first woman director, as well as her Neapolitan social–cultural scene. Notari (1875–1946) founded Dora Film as a family enterprise and produced, wrote and acted in over one hundred films embedded in Naples’s urban landscape. Her realist melodramas and documentary shorts evoke the everyday life of the plebeian characters of the city’s vicoli (‘alleyways’) and of Italian immigrants in New York. Ruiz’s docu-film, which premiered on RAI Storia on 4 October 2024 in the series ‘Donne di Campania’ (‘Women of Campania’), formally resembles archaeological restoration, relying on interviews intercut with the surviving clips to reconstruct Elvira’s career. A number of individuals lead us through a journey of discovery of Notari’s cinematic Neapolitan realm. Most central are actress Iaia Forte and film critic Giuliana Bruno.

Review of: Travelling Auteurs: The Geopolitics of Postwar Italian Cinema , Luca Caminati (2024) Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 203 pp., ISBN 978-0-25306-955-9, p/bk, USD 30.00

Two recent 2019 Italian films, Federico Bondi’s Dafne and Stefano Cipani’s Mio fratello rincorre i dinosauri , subvert the ways that people with disabilities have traditionally been characterized onscreen. Whereas much of Italian cinema has marginalized impaired individuals and utilized them as metaphors for some social concern, these films depict their characters with Down—Dafne and Gio, respectively—as deeply connected to their communities. They therefore thrive in areas where people with intellectual and developmental impairments have typically struggled, such as in the workplace, at school, or at home. Instead, it is the ostensibly able-bodied characters, Luigi and Jack, who develop various impairments that result in their increasing isolation, ostracization, and Othering. I contend, however, that Luigi and Jack’s temporary experience as disabled individuals and, consequently, their limited, yet firsthand knowledge of the ways that people with disabilities are treated, facilitates empathy for, and an eventual reconciliation with, Dafne and Gio. More than an effort to normalize disability through an attempt to dispel common misperceptions about the abilities of people with Down, Dafne and Mio fratello rincorre i dinosauri succeed in capturing the humanity of their disabled characters, effectively humanizing disability. Similar depictions of people with impairments, and with Down specifically, have heretofore been absent from Italian cinema and thus open the door to more positive and perhaps more authentic representations of disability.

<i>Italian Film Music, 1950s–1970s: Between Tradition, Innovation, and Internationalisation.</i> By Franco Sciannameo

The first collection of articles solely dedicated to critical posthumanism in Italian Film, this special issue gathers a group of articles that explore the posthumanist dimension of Italian cinema and other audiovisual media, as a means of escaping a human-centred gaze and the Humanist—masculinist, patriarchal, colonialist, heteronormative—worldview it upholds. This critique takes a variety of unique forms in Italian screen media, inviting multiple theoretical approaches. The articles included in this special issue analyse through a posthumanist lens films by traditional auteurs, such as Dario Argento, Mario Bava, and Daniele Ciprì and Franco Maresco, but also by contemporary directors, such as Matteo Garrone and Pietro Marcello. As well as exploring the tropes and themes of posthumanist cinema, this collection aims to categorize the tools of a film language that gestures toward what was heretofore unavailable to physical, affective, or intellectual apprehension, and can be thought of productively in critical posthumanist terms.

This article analyses the reception of the African territory in a limited number of films and series set in ancient Rome and produced at different historical moments. In the first section, it deals with the image of Carthaginian Africa in two Italian films from the early 20th century: Cabiria (1914) and Scipione l'Africano (1937). The second section analyses the image of Roman Africa in three more recent US productions: Gladiator (2000), Ben-Hur (2016) and Those About to Die (2024). This study delves into certain war-political conditioning factors and some contemporary socio-cultural trends, specific to each period of production, which may have influenced the audiovisual representation of North African territories in pre-Roman and Roman times. In this vein, I will identify some of the most recurrent stereotypes about the “African” or the “Oriental” in these productions, in relation to relevant historical issues such as colonialism, nationalism, orientalist visions, slavery –ancient and modern– and racism.

In this article, I explore the work of Joy Nwosu, an ethnomusicologist, musician and film scholar, who in 1968 published Cinema e Africa nera: L’immagine dei neri nel cinema bianco e il primo cinema africano visti nel 1968 (Cinema and Black Africa: The Image of Black People in White Cinema and Early African Cinema as seen in 1968). I approach Nwosu’s study, now over fifty-five years removed from its original date of publication, in order to examine the work as an example of what scholar and activist bell hooks articulates as an “oppositional gaze,” or a critical viewing practice enacted by Black women spectators. Specifically, what would it mean to acknowledge Nwosu’s study as a foundational moment of postcolonial Italian Cinema Studies thus challenging the historiography of the field? I will first outline the sociopolitical contexts of Nwosu’s Cinema e Africa nera, including African decolonization and its reception in Italy. I then consider the study’s significance in relation to a body of scholarship on Italian cinema and media studies attendant to racial discourse and representation, most notably those produced within the last twenty years. I argue that Nwosu’s Cinema e Africa nera directs us to reconsider Italian film history proper, advancing a critical race and decolonial analysis prior to the formative emergence of these fields almost two decades later.

The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive assessment of problems arising during the translation of feature films related to differences in cultural-historical contexts and sociolinguistic specificities across different countries. It examines mechanisms for transferring intertextual phenomena present in movies as well as processes involved in forming and functioning ideologemes— key symbolic constructs representing fundamental ethnic cultural values. Special attention is given to preserving the uniqueness of national cultural components in language transfer since adaptation often leads to loss of important ethnocultural characteristics. Specific examples of unsuccessful translation solutions applied to Russian and Italian films are provided, emphasizing the necessity of taking into account conceptual cultural specificity and developing effective methodologies for translating audiovisual materials that adequately preserve the author’s artistic intent. The findings highlight the importance of further development of theory and practice in analyzing cinema within modern global cultural environments. This research will be valuable for specialists working on issues concerning intercultural communication, linguistic-cultural studies, and translation science.

The production of sponsored films has historically depended on considerable financial and logistical resources, shaping corporate identities both internally and publicly. These films represent a pivotal moment in the evolution of media economics as an ideological and geopolitical tool for self-promotion. In this context, they frequently introduce an extra layer of storytelling that complements commodity fetishism. Yet, authors like Olmi, Ivens, Orsini, Bertolucci, Pontecorvo and the Taviani brothers navigated these corporate imperatives, documenting Italy’s national advancements in electrification, radiocommunication and industrial automation amid world conflicts, decolonization, labour disputes and environmental risks generated by energy consumption. This article explores how Italian corporate films encapsulate potent historical memories, creating a unique blend of authorial detours and corporate integration. In doing so, they critically reveal the interplay between humans, production systems, the environment and marginalized communities.

Like François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer and other directors with whom he collaborated as a cinematographer, Catalan–Cuban cineaste Néstor Almendros (1930–92) was an advocate of Italian neorealism in his youth. In the 1950s, he praised Rome Open City and Bicycle Thieves in Havana and wrote a seminal article about neorealist cinematography for Film Culture in New York. This early admiration for Italian cinema resulted in his decision to study at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome in 1956–57, where his connection to Italy’s film world was enhanced and transformed. This article reconstructs the formative experience of Almendros at the Centro as well as his posterior relationship with screenwriter Cesare Zavattini in Cuba. By doing so, it explores one way in which neorealism was first received – and later transplanted – to Latin America by native filmmakers at a moment when new film movements (Free Cinema, Nouvelle Vague, Direct Cinema) were rising in Europe and North America.

This reflection is based on our experience leading the Italian strand of the European Research Council–funded project Studiotec. Film Studios: Infrastructure, Culture, Innovation in Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, 1930–60. One of our lines of inquiry has been the presence of women below the line in the Italian studios. In the absence of archival sources, well-documented production histories, and primary source interviews with women movie workers, we have had to take a more lateral approach. We tried therefore to “locate alternative sources of historiography and ask new kinds of questions” and have drawn on a range of more tangential sources, both quantitative and qualitative. Our contribution reflects on this tension between a doomed “recuperative hermeneutics” and the speculative approach that has emerged more recently. We discuss how, when facing the silences of Italian film historiography, we tried to to find sources that “talked.”

This essay explores neurosis in Italian cinema during the years of Italy’s economic boom, analysing its role in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Il deserto rosso [‘Red Desert’] (1964) and Elio Petri’s Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto [‘Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion’] (1969) and La classe operaia va in paradiso [‘The Working Class Goes to Heaven’] (1971). The emotional and psychological turmoil of characters suffering from neurosis reflects their reaction to changes affecting Italian society of the time. As members of a community transformed by new social values and gender roles, neurotic characters embody and become spokespeople for the revolution of cultural norms taking place. I consider the differing factors that influence a gendered portrayal of neurosis in certain films of the 1960s and 1970s through a comparative analysis of female and male characters demonstrating neurotic symptoms and tendencies. Demonstrating how neurosis serves in the films examined to counter predominant gender models for Italian women and men of the time, I argue that these films propose re-evaluations of traditional forms of femininity and masculinity. Narrating the neurotic functions in these films to transform narratives of normality, portraying neurosis as a source of agency and knowledge rather than individual or social liability.

Cinecittà, known as the "City of Cinema," is one of the world’s most important film production centers and a fundamental factor in the cultural and economic development of Rome. This article examines the historical evolution of the site, from its founding in the 1930s to its current role on the international film stage. It analyzes changes in the studios and sets, as well as how Cinecittà is redefining itself to compete with other emblematic cultural and tourist landmarks in Rome, such as the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. Furthermore, the article explores its contribution to the local economy, its dynamics as a cultural tourism hub, and the prospects for its development through sustainable cultural entrepreneurship practices, aiming to transform it into a multifaceted center of entertainment and culture comparable to international models like Disneyland.

Immaginare il Moloch. Ivo Blom, Quo Vadis?, Cabiria and the “Archaeologists”. Early Italian Cinema’s Appropriation of Art and Archaeology, Kaplan, Torino 2023

In October 2023, C’è ancora domani, the first feature film directed by Paola Cortellesi, was released in Italy. After being in theaters for almost a year, it totaled 44 million euros in takings, surpassing foreign titles such as Barbie and -Oppenheimer. The economic success and the cross-cutting consensus received from spectators and critics inevitably make C’è ancora domani a case worthy of attention. In this framework, the article adopts the perspective of media industry studies to understand which factors linked to the film’s production and distribution may be able to explain, in a substantial or accessory manner, its success. Secondly, C’è ancora domani is used to track down and discuss critical issues in the Italian film industry. Using Cinetel data and statements released by various stakeholders, the study shows how the film was differently promoted in two consequent phases (firstly hiding its committed nature, and then exploiting word of mouth), thus aggregating two different audiences over time. From this perspective, C’è ancora domani demonstrates how, in order to valorized films, it is always important to develop ad hoc strategies, and that the prototypal nature of films also concerns the promotional patterns.

This article examines the early development of Einaudi’s cinematic publishing (1948–1952) by tracing editorial negotiations, intellectual exchanges, and institutional constraints that shaped the selection and rejection of books on cinema. Through an extensive analysis of archival correspondence, editorial minutes, and publication catalogs, the study reconstructs the network of translators, consultants, and critics who contributed to establishing a dedicated space for cinema within Einaudi’s catalog. The investigation focuses on figures such as Bruno Fonzi, Antonio Giolitti, Antonio Pietrangeli, Umberto Barbaro, Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, and Guido Aristarco, as well as key foreign authors whose works defined the publisher’s editorial approach to cinema. The research highlights the ideological, aesthetic, and commercial factors that influenced Einaudi’s choices, revealing tensions between its pedagogical mission and the emerging industrial dynamics of film publishing. By addressing the conflicts between different conceptions of film criticism – ranging from historical-theoretical studies to collections of screenplays – the article sheds light on how Einaudi positioned itself as a platform for intellectual debate on cinema. Ultimately, this study contributes to broader discussions on the intersection between publishing and cinema, demonstrating how the Turin-based house played a crucial role in shaping Italian film culture in the postwar period.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the peculiarities of the perception ofItalian cinema by different types of viewers in the Soviet cinema discourse of the 1960s-1980s. The emergence of the possibility of differentiating the audiences of mass and elite foreign cinema in the years of the «thaw» is highlighted, the causes and consequences of this division within the formerly unified group of Soviet movie audience are analyzed. Using the example of Italian cinema, which was popular during the studied period, we consider the audience of Italian mass movies — comedies, melodramas, adventure movies. A feature of the author ’s approach to the topic is an attempt to identify an active viewer of foreign movies in the USSR. It is suggested that this type of viewer associates going to the cinema not only with recreation, but also with intellectual activity that requires reflection on the plots and images seen on the screen. The comparison of the positions of the active Soviet moviegoers and the choice of a wide audience is carried out by analyzing static data on the attendance of Italian paintings in the USSR in different decades, comparing the most popular foreign paintings of the Soviet screen and the leaders of the movie distribution, as well as materials from sociological research on the opinion of readers of the «Soviet Screen» about the best movies and actors. The empirical basis of our research was statistical data collected by movie critic A. V. Fedorov, materials of the Soviet mass media devoted to Italian cinema.

The immediate post-war years in Italy were characterized by a dual focus: on the one hand, the phase of reconstruction and economic revival, and on the other, a vibrant debate surrounding the ‘defascization’ of politics and culture, which ultimately led to a process of self-absolution. During this time, periodicals underwent significant turmoil, marked by a revival of pre-war models alongside the emergence of new publications. In the realm of film criticism, there was a resurgence of old specialized magazines, along with the creation of new ones, reflecting a growing recognition of the importance of film critics in the dissemination and interpretation of cinema. Intense discussions arose as film critics sought to distance themselves from the fascist era, positioning themselves around three pivotal themes: navigating Italy’s complex socio-political landscape, addressing the evolution of Italian cinema during a transformative period marked by the birth of neorealism, and responding to the influx of foreign films — particularly Hollywood productions — that returned to theaters following the era of autarky. This article aims to analyze how a sense of belonging among film critics in post-war Italy was constructed by examining editorials from popular magazines such as Oggi (resuming publication in 1945) and Tempo (resuming in 1946), as well as specialized film magazines like Star (1944), Film d’oggi (1945), Film, and Bianco e Nero (both resuming in 1946), Cinema (resuming in 1948), Filmcritica (1950), and Cinema Nuovo (1952). Initially, the years following the war fostered a spirit of collaboration among film critics; however, by the late 1940s, the onset of the Cold War and differing ideological affiliations contributed to a cultural confrontation that gave rise to militant film criticism.

Roberto Benigni's 1997 Italian film Life is Beautiful applies post-genocide theory to offer a distinctive viewpoint on the Holocaust. Through the character of Guido, who employs humour and imagination as means of resistance and survival, this essay explores how the movie depicts the psychological fallout and emotional repercussions of genocide. The study explores how the film shifts focus from the historical event itself to the enduring impact on individuals and families, presenting a narrative of resilience, memory, and the reassertion of human values in the face of dehumanization. Post-genocide theory allows for an understanding of how trauma is processed and how hope is retained amidst collective pain. This paper's primary goal is to examine how Life is Beautiful functions as a post-genocide text by emphasising the emotional coping mechanisms that survivors employ to deal with trauma. In order to provide a message of hope and survival, this study intends to investigate how storytelling, humour, and paternal love influence a child's experience of horror. The study also aims to show how film can be an effective medium for fostering emotional recovery following genocide and interacting with historical memory.