We know almost every detail about the directors and the star system of the golden age of Italian film, Neorealism, from Roberto Rossellini to Anna Magnani, but what do we know about their audiences in Italy?
‘Italian Cinema Audiences. Histories and Memories of Cinema-going in Post-war Italy 1945-60’ is a publication that offers, for the first time, an image of the role of cinema in the daily life of Italians immediately after the Second World War, juxtaposing the intimate and affectionate memories of older people with analysis of the boom of the Italian film industry in the 1950s. While 1945 opened with the film that was to become the universal symbol of Neorealism, “Roma Città Aperta” (Rome, Open City) by Roberto Rossellini, a vivid and dramatic testimony to the resistance in Italy, who were the people who filled the cinemas after the Liberation? The book, published by Bloomsbury and produced by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, brings together a wealth of documents including 160 video interviews, more than 1000 questionnaires, archival material, box office data and critical contributions from specialist and non-specialist magazines of the period.
The book will be presented on 16 June at the Italian Cultural Institute of London and will be available free online. The authors Daniela Treveri Gennari, Sarah Culhane, Danielle Hipkins, Silvia Dibeltulo, and Catherine O’Rawe will speak with Sam Manning and Mariagrazia Fanchi.
For more information, see iiclondra.esteri.it
