New Publication

The first volume of essays originating from the project A New Italian Political Cinema? will be published in April 2013 by Troubador.

http://www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=2137

Below are details of the volume’s contents.  Work has already begun on the second volume, in which the following themes will be examined: Cinematic representations of Italy’s socio-political past;  social marginalization on screen;  filmic representations of the State, institutional repression, and counter-reaction.

UN NUOVO CINEMA POLITICO ITALIANO?  

VOLUME I:  LAVORO, MIGRAZIONE, RELAZIONI DI GENERE

a cura di

William Hope

Luciana d’Arcangeli

 Silvana Serra

  

Introduzione:  Un nuovo cinema politico italiano?

William Hope

Relazioni industriali e luoghi di lavoro nel cinema del nuovo millennio

Introduzione: Lavoro e alienazione nel cinema del XXI secolo

William Hope

Crisi, lavoro e sindacato nell’Italia di oggi

Fabiana Stefanoni

Donne al lavoro: il precariato e la femminilizzazione del lavoro nei film Signorina Effe di Wilma Labate, Mi piace lavorare – Mobbing di Francesca Comencini e Riprendimi di Anna Negri

Bernadette Luciano e Susanna Scarparo

La commedia del precariato in Tutta la vita davanti di Paolo Virzì

Maria Elena D’Amelio

Una politica dal volto umano: le Parole sante di Ascanio Celestini

Paolo Chirumbolo

‘Lasciate ogni speranza, o voi ch’entrate’ nella ThyssenKrupp. La messa in scena della realtà

Flavia Laviosa

Modernità liquida, lavoro e identità in Baci e abbracci di Paolo Virzì

Marco Paoli

 

Genere, sessualità e identità sociale

Introduzione: Un’altra metà del cielo: genere, sessualità e identità sociale nel cinema italiano

Luciana d’Arcangeli

 

La sconosciuta di Giuseppe Tornatore: la rivendicazione della soggettività materna

Piera Carroli

L’inetto e il melodramma maschile: L’uomo che ama di Maria Sole Tognazzi

Rebecca Bauman

Polis polisemica: Saturno contro di Ferzan Ozpetek con la sua polisemia micropolitica

Mattia Marino

Nuove donne di mafia sugli schermi

Luciana d’Arcangeli

 

Migrazione, multiculturalismo e relazioni interetniche

 

Introduzione:  Migrazione, Mercificazione e Integrazione nel Ventunesimo Secolo

William Hope               

 

Nessuna ‘giusta distanza’ fra immigrati e nativi. La lotta degli immigrati che ‘non vogliono nascondersi’

Patrizia Cammarata

Nuove Narrative sull’Altro: Arabi e Musulmani nel Cinema Italiano Contemporaneo

Michela Ardizzoni

Nostalgia e migrazione in Il vento fa il suo giro di Giorgio Diritti

Sabine Schrader

Bianco e Nero di Cristina Comencini: i nuovi italiani – questioni di identità e di marginalizzazione

William Hope e Mafunda Lucia Ndongala

La diaspora africana in Italia: immigrazione e identità nazionale in Waalo Fendo di Mohammed Soudani ed in Western Union: Small Boats di Isaac Julien

Shelleen Greene

Appendice

Intervista a Giuseppe Tornatore:  Cinema, Società, Politica, a cura di William Hope

A New Italian Political Cinema? Initial Findings

Below is the first set of findings to emerge from the events that have formed part of the project to date:

• Unlike political cinema in Italy forty years ago, Italian cinema today is an orphan of the political ideologies that animated the protest movements of the 60s/70s, and while a cinema predicated on socio-political themes can still be said to exist, it functions primarily at an intimate, personal micro level (this is the case for feature-length fiction) and often fails to connect the individual realities of people to broader macro-level political, social and economic phenomena.

• Political films and documentaries, particularly during the Berlusconi era, have often proved to be more effective in terms of political denunciation and what would traditionally be termed “investigative journalism” than the Italian press and news outlets (e.g. Sabina Guzzanti’s ‘Draquila’, concerning state corruption in the aftermath of the Abruzzo earthquake).

• There is an evolving body of internationally recognized prize-winning Italian cinematic work – notably shorts and medium-length work – which is predicated on ‘unfashionable’ socio-economic issues; the socially marginalized in Italian society, the ‘reception’ (detention) centres for migrants, etc. Such projects never receive the finance to become full-length, commercial projects but play a role in raising public awareness of certain issues.

• We have identified several cases of films being made by certain individuals who are themselves directly affected by socio-economic problems and political events. One example is the short film ‘A zupp è fasul’ made by the Ferrari car workers in Modena to highlight their battle against their management’s attempts to impose less favourable working conditions. Should this evolve into a discernible tendency, it represents a fascinating development within film-making – with real-life individuals, in the middle of their own ongoing ‘narratives’, recording their experiences in a cinematic form.

• Within mainstream, commercial film projects, there is a tendency to focus on the more ‘spectacular’, visible aspects of socio-economic problems and to neglect issues which, paradoxically, affect far greater numbers of people. A key example is the issue of migration to Italy. Films tend to focus on the traumatic arrival of the migrant (e.g. Crialese’s ‘Nuovomondo’) or the marginalization/exploitation of the migrant once s/he has entered the country. By contrast, issues such as the plight of tens of thousands of people of African origin who are born in Italy, individuals who are highly educated but who are denied Italian citizenship, are rarely publicized.

• The limited access and, indeed, exclusion of groups of film-makers from access to funds and resources is a more profound problem than is commonly imagined. Several workshop presentations and personal testimonies highlighted the ongoing difficulties faced by film-makers of non-Italian ethnic origins and by film-makers with political projects in gaining access to the Italian film industry’s funds, resources and collaborative opportunities.

 

 

MANCHESTER CONFERENCE PHOTOS

Many thanks to all the speakers and participants who took part in the recent conference to conclude the first phase of the project “A New Italian Political Cinema?”.  A range of photographs can be found on the Manchester Conference Photos page.

MANCHESTER CONFERENCE, JANUARY 27th/28th 2012: PROGRAMME

    

The concluding event in the first phase of “A New Italian Political Cinema?” will be a conference that will take place at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Chorlton Mill, 3 Cambridge Street, Manchester, M1 5BY:  http://www.anthonyburgess.org/   The venue is in Manchester city centre and is five minutes’ walk from Manchester Oxford Road train station.

The event will begin on the evening of Friday, January 27th and will continue all day on the 28th.   The conference programme is published below:  Sessions 1, 2 and 4 will be in Italian.  Session 3 will be in English.  Conference papers will be of approximately 15 minutes’ duration.

DAY ONE:      Friday, January 27^th,  19.30–21.30

19.30–19.45:  Introduction (in English):  William Hope (University of Salford, GB): Political Cinema: Cinematic Mainstreams and Peripheries 

SESSIONE 1:  19.45–21.05.    Girare nelle zone rosse:  azione popolare e repressione di Stato  (in italiano)

Silvana Serra (Società Dante Alighieri, Manchester e iscritta Cgil):  Verità filmiche su violenza di Stato e mistificazione della realtà nella storia recente d’Italia: Draquila di Sabina Guzzanti. 

Monica Jansen  (Università di Utrecht / Università di Anversa):  Trauma o utopia?  Repressione e rivolta nelle visualizzazioni del G8 a Genova.

Filippo Ticozzi  (regista):  Video-appunti guatemaltechi.

Proiezione di una sequenza del film di Filippo Ticozzi, Lettere dal Guatemala.

Domande / dibattito 

21.05:    Rinfresco

_____________________________________________________

DAY TWO:      Saturday,  January 28^th,   11.30–17.20

SESSIONE 2:    11.30–13.00.    Sguardi diversi sul dramma della migrazione  (in italiano)

11.30–11.50:   Introduzione generale:  William Hope (Università di Salford, GB):  Una panoramica degli eventi realizzati nel progetto Un nuovo cinema politico italiano?        Introduzione alla sessione:  Federica Mazzara (University College, Londra): L’accento mancato: il cinema della migrazione in Italia.

Patrizia Muscogiuri  (Università di Salford): Terraferma, tra plauso e contestazioni: Distorsioni mediatiche, deformazioni linguistiche e la clandestinità delle politiche italiane sull’immigrazione.

Vito Zagarrio (Università Roma Tre):  Lo sguardo della migrazione: la messa in scena del cinema italiano che rappresenta l’immigrazione.

Carlo Michele Schirinzi  (regista):  Spostamenti tellurici: un calcio alla democrazia cinematografica.

Proiezione del cortometraggio di Carlo Michele Schirinzi,  Notturno stenopeico. 

Domande / dibattito

13.00–14.00:        Pranzo

_____________________________________________________

SESSION 3:    14.00–15.20.      Filming Modern Italian Society: Migration and Integration (in English)

Introduction: William Hope (University of Salford)   

Pauline Small  (Queen Mary, University of London): 21^st Century Boat People

Guido Bonsaver  (University of Oxford):  Immigration and the Politics of the Italian Film Industry

Luciana d’Arcangeli  (Flinders University, Adelaide): Making the Invisible Visible in Francesco Patierno’s Cose dell’altro mondo (2011) 

Questions / discussion

15.20–16.00:      Break   

_____________________________________________________

SESSIONE 4:     16.00–17.15.       Lavorare ai margini: il cinema e i lavoratori invisibili d’Italia  (in italiano)

Introduzione:    William Hope (Università di Salford, GB):  L’importanza della visibilita’ per le problematiche del lavoro in Italia:  i metalmeccanici della Ferrari come registi

Marco Paoli (Università di Liverpool):  Modernità liquida e identità nelle tragicommedie di Paolo Virzì

Áine O’Healy (Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles):  Destinata ad assistere: la badante nel cinema contemporaneo

Domande / dibattito

17.15–17.20:     Concluding remarks

This event is free and open to the public, but there will be a guest list; anyone interested in attending as an observer is asked to contact the organizer, William Hope, who will register your name for the day(s) that you wish to attend (please specify the 27th and/or 28th):  W.Hope@salford.ac.uk    Unfortunately, it will not be possible to turn up on the day and attend the event without having registered in advance.

 

Cremona Workshop Photos

Many thanks to all the participants who contributed to what was an excellent event.  Selected photographs from the workshop can be found below.  The final event in the first phase of the project will take place in Manchester on January 27th/28th 2012.  Information regarding this event will be circulated via this blog from October onwards.

 

CREMONA WORKSHOP PROGRAMME (July 9th, 2011)

The following programme can be considered to be definitive.  The workshop will take place at the Hotel Impero, Cremona, on July 9th, 2011.  Presentations will be in Italian and last 10 minutes; they will outline work in progress and pose questions for further discussion.

Although the workshop programme is full, with no further space for new speakers, places are still available to attend the workshop in an observational capacity. There will, however, be a formal guest list for the event and places are unlikely to be available on the day of the workshop. If you wish to attend the Cremona event as an observer, please contact William Hope (W.Hope@salford.ac.uk) and your name will be added to the guest list.

 

10.00-10.40:  Registration

10.40-10.50:  Introduction

William Hope (The University of Salford, GB.  Co-ordinator of the project A New Italian Political Cinema?):  Political Cinema: Screening the Effects of Capitalism

10.50-12.00:  THE STATE, INSTITUTIONAL OPPRESSION AND COUNTER-REACTION

Amanda Minervini (Brown University, Providence, USA; activist in the Popolo Viola movement): Enrico Deaglio and Beppe Cremagnani’s Uccidete la democrazia: Mathematical Obscenities and Statistical Resistance in Post-Constitutional Italy

Clodagh Brook (The University of Birmingham, GB): Impegno, Protest, and the Catholic Church in Italy

Federico Giordano (The University of Udine): From the ‘Shroud’ to the ‘Caimano’. The Somatic Polymorphism of Silvio Berlusconi in Italian Cinema.

Mauro Sassi (McGill University, Montreal, Canada): Francesca Comencini’s Carlo Giuliani, ragazzo – A Counterhegemonic Documentary

12.00-12.30:  Refreshments

12.30-1.30:    REPRESENTATIONS OF ITALY’S SOCIO-POLITICAL PAST

Introduction:  Luciana d’Arcangeli (Flinders University, Adelaide): Why does Italian cinema still need to turn to the past?

Pauline Small (Queen Mary, London GB): Post-political Cinema: Amelio, Giordana, Garrone 

Flavia Brizio-Skov (University of Tennessee): A New Italian Political Cinema: Is There One? Daniele Luchetti’s Mio fratello è figlio unico          

Ilaria Serra  (Florida Atlantic University, USA): Cinema and polis in the films of Dennis Dellai

1.30-2.30:  Lunch

2.30-4.00:  MIGRATION AND MARGINALIZATION ON SCREEN

Patrizia Cammarata  (Partito di Alternativa Comunista):  The Migrant Experience in Contemporary Italy

Michela Ardizzoni  (University of Colorado, Boulder, USA): New Narratives of the Other: Arabs and Muslims in Italian Cinema                                       

Sabine Schrader (University of Innsbruck, Austria): Migration and Nostalgia in Giorgio Diritti’s Il vento fa il suo giro                                   

Yasmina Khamal  (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium): Alex Infascelli’s Almost Blue : The noir metropolis, marginal identities and socially committed cinema                                    

Sally Hill  (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand):  Representing Disability in 21^st Century Italian Cinema                                                     

4.00-4.30:  Refreshments

4.30-6.10:  FILMIC REPRESENTATIONS OF LABOUR RELATIONS AND THE WORKPLACE

Fabiana Stefanoni  (Partito di Alternativa Comunista):  Workers, Trade Unions and Capital in 21^st Century Italy

Paolo Chirumbolo (Louisiana State University, USA): Ascanio Celestini’s Parole sante – the Call Centre Workers of Atesia 

Maria Elena D’Amelio  (SUNY Stony Brook, USA): The comedy of ‘precarious’ lifestyles in Paolo Virzì’s Tutta la vita davanti

Marco Paoli (The University of Liverpool, UK): Paolo Virzì’s Baci e abbracci: Class Conflict and Illusionary Happiness

Flavia Laviosa  (Wellesley College, USA)  “‘Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate’ in ThyssenKrupp”: Pietro Balla and Monica Repetto’s ThyssenKrupp Blues

Andrea Righi   (University of Puerto Rico, MAYAGUEZ):  Filming Capitalist Accumulation in Italy. In fabbrica (2007) and I Like to Work (Mobbing) (2004) by Francesca Comencini                                             

6.10-6.20:  Closing Remarks

7.00:  Aperitivo

Adelaide Workshop – Photos

Many thanks to all the presenters and participants for making the Adelaide workshop a great success.