A Trial for Rape (1979, Italy): The transformative power of the female gaze

By Milly Buonanno¹
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¹ Sapienza University of Roma
Source: Shaping Global Cultures through Screenwriting , pp 408-424
Publication Date: September 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951590_30
Language: English
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In 1978, in the slowing but still vibrant phase of second-wave feminism, an all-female group of filmmakers, directors and producers who were all militant feminists (Maria Grazia Belmonti, Anna Carini, Paola De Martiis, Rony Daopoulo, Annabella Miscuglio, Loredana Rotondo) conceived, proposed and realized, for the then-‘progressive’ second channel of Italian public television (Rete due), the documentary A Trial for Rape. For the first time in Italy, a television crew was allowed entering a courtroom to film a judicial hearing. When aired in the spring of 1979, the documentary shocked the nation, which was made abruptly aware of the hidden reality of the ‘second rape’: the devastating experience, no less than the physical violation, that women encounter on their path to justice. A Trial for Rape, which soon gained international circulation, nominations (Emmy) and awards (Prix Italia 1979), and still enjoys a long afterlife, is counted among ‘the programmes that changed Italy’. It has been a landmark in the long-lasting debate on rape law reform in Italy and, as a female-authored screen work, it remains the TV programme considered most disruptive and influential in disclosing the patriarchal male domination of the world, and of accusing the same of the symbolic violence inflicted on women. In analytically reconstructing this case, the approach of feminist media studies will be supplemented with conceptual and theoretical resources from television studies and Bourdieusian sociology.

Keywords: feminism ; media event ; public TV ; rape trial ; symbolic violence ; witnessing

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References

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References

Abruzzese, A., Barlozzetti, G. and Bartocci, M. (eds) (2013), Le televisioni di Massimo Fichera, Rome: RAI-ERI.
Belmonti, M. G. (1980), Un processo per stupro, Torino: Einaudi.
Bevacqua, M. (2000), Rape on the Public Agenda. Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault, Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Boiano, I. (2015), Femminismo e processo penale, Rome: Ediesse.
Bonifacio, E., Mandolfo, P. and Miscuglio, A. (eds) (1982), L'immagine riflessa. La produzione delle donne tra cinema e television, Catania: Litostampa Idonea.
Borgese, G. (1979), ‘Gli italiani hanno capito cos’è uno stupro’, Il Corriere della Sera, 27 April, p. 1.
[Google Scholar]
Bourdieu, P. (2001), The Masculine Domination, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Brancati, D. (2015), Occhi di maschio. Le donne e la televisione in Italia, Rome: Donzelli.
Bruno, G. and Nadotti, M. (eds) (1988), Off Screen: Women and Film in Italy, London: Routledge.
Buzzolan, U. (1979), ‘La tv ha portato in tutte le famiglie il dramma di una donna violentata’, La Stampa, 17 April, p. 1.
[Google Scholar]
Cardini, F. (2007), La memoria ha un futuro: Processo per stupro trent’anni dopo, Assessorato alle Politiche per le pari opportunità. Rome: Comune di Roma.
Cavallaro, D., d’Arcangeli, L. and Kennedy, C. (eds) (2021), Atti di accusa, Rome: Aracne editrice.
Cornero, L. (2012), La tigre e il violino, Rome: RAI-ERI.
Cucklanz, L. (1996), Rape on Trial, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
D’Amico, F. D. (2019), ‘L’anima militante del video nell’epoca digitale’, Sciami, 6, https://webzine.sciami.com/lanima-militante-del-video-nellepoca-digitale/. Accessed 29 October 2022.
[Google Scholar]
Dayan, D. and Katz, E. (1992), Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Deren, M. (1965), ‘Amateur versus professional’, Cinema Culture, 39, pp. 144–45.
[Google Scholar]
Di Capua, G. (1979), ‘La violenza sommersa’, Radiocorriere TV, 52, pp. 59–60.
[Google Scholar]
Di Nicola, P. (2018), La mia parola contro la sua, Milan: HarperCollins Italia.
Ellis, J. (2000), Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty, London: I.B. Tauris.
Filippelli, S. (2011), ‘Le ragazze con il videotape. La tv secondo Loredana Rotondo’, Bianco e Nero, 571, pp. 96–107.
[Google Scholar]
Filppini, N. M. (2002), Mai più sole contro la violenza sessuale, Rome: Viella Editrice.
Friedan, B. (1963), The Feminine Mystique, New York: W.W. Norton.
Frosh, P. (2009), ‘Telling presences’, in P. Frosh and A. Pinchevsky (eds), Media Witnessing: Testimony in the Age of Mass Communication, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 49–72.
[Google Scholar]
Galimberti, C. (2021), ‘Cinema, sostantivo femminile’, in P. Cioni, E. Di Caro, P. Gaglianone et al. (eds), Le donne nel sessantotto, Bologna: il Mulino.
[Google Scholar]
Gianaria, F. and Mittone, A. (1992), Giudici e telecamere. Il processo come spettacolo, Torino: Einaudi.
Giglioli, P., Cavicchioli, S. and Fele, G. (1997), Rituali di degradazione. Anatomia del processo Cusani, Bologna: ilMulino.
Grasso, A. (1992), Storia della televisione italiana, Milan: Garzanti.
Heffernan, C. (2001), ‘Un processo per stupro and AAA Offresi: A multilayered analysis of two Italian feminist documentaries’, MA dissertation, University of Auckland.
[Google Scholar]
Li Vigni, I. (2017), Penaliste nel terzo millennio, Milan: Franco Angeli.
Licciardello, A. (2016), ‘Io sono mia: Esperienze di cinema militante femminista negli anni Settanta’, Zapruder, 39, pp. 86–93.
[Google Scholar]
Long, J. (1999), Telling Women’s Lives, New York: New York University Press.
Luciano, B. and Scarparo, S. (2013), Reframing Italy: New Trends in Italian Women’s Filmmaking, West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
Madigan, L. and Gamble, N. (1991), The Second Rape: Society’s Continue Betrayal of the Victim, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Mascherpa, S. (2011), Il delitto del Circeo, una storia italiana, Rome: Aracne.
Massaro, F. R. and Silvestri, S. (2017), L’età d’oro. Il caso Véronique, Florence: Emmebi Edizioni.
McRobbie, A. (1997), ‘More! New sexualities in girls’ and women’s magazines’, in A. McRobbie (ed.), Back to Reality?, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
[Google Scholar]
Menduni, E. (2018), Videostoria: l’Italia e la TV 1975–2015, Milan: Bompiani.
Miscuglio, A. and Daopoulo, R. (1976), ‘Kinomata: una storia del cinema al femminile’, Effe, 4:12, pp. 42–43.
[Google Scholar]
Miscuglio, A. and Daopoulo, R. (1980), Kinomata. La donna nel cinema, Bari: Dedalo libri.
Miscuglio, A. and Daopoulo, R. (1982), ‘La produzione cinematografica e televisiva’, in E. Bonifacio, M. Pina and A. Miscuglio (eds), L’immagine riflessa. La produzione delle donne tra cinema e televisione, Catania: Litostampa Idonea, pp. 76–79.
[Google Scholar]
Monteleone, F. (1992), Storia della radio e della televisione in Italia, Venice: Marsilio.
Mulvey, L. (1975), ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’, Screen, 16:3, pp. 6–18.
[Google Scholar]
Nichols, B. (2010), Introduction to Documentary, 2nd ed., Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Nichols, B. (2020), ‘Thoughts on raw footage, observational documentaries and the cinema’, Visible Evidence, https://www.visibleevidence.org/article/thoughts-on-raw-footage-observational-documentaries-and-the-cinema. Accessed 12 December 2022.
[Google Scholar]
Piovano, E. (2016), L’età d’oro, Italy: Kitchenfilm.
Ripa di Meana, L. (1976), ‘Donne nel cinema’, Rai3, https://www.raiplay/it. Accessed 12 December 2022.
[Google Scholar]
Rotondo, L. (1986), ‘La provocazione inevitabile’, in S. Neonato and S. Pietrofort (eds), Parole incrociate, Torino: Edizioni Cooperativa Libera Stampa, pp. 82–88.
[Google Scholar]
Scannell, P. (2018), ‘Media events: An afterword’, Media, Culture & Society, 40:1, pp. 153–57.
[Google Scholar]
Shamberg, M. (1971), Guerrilla Television, New York: Henry Holt.
Tagliaferri, M. and Miele, M. (1979), ‘Stupratori uscite dalle toghe’, Effe, https://efferivistafemminista.it/2014/11/stupratori-uscite-dalle-toghe. Accessed 22 October 2022.
[Google Scholar]
Uva, C. (2015), L’immagine politica. Forme del contropotere tra cinema, video e fotografia nell’Italia degli anni settanta, Sesto San Giovanni: Mimesis.
Veltroni, W. (1992), I programmi che hanno cambiato l’Italia, Milano: Feltrinelli.

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