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(Un)desired others: Central Eastern European refugees in post-war Italian cinema
- Source: Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies, Volume 11, Issue Intersections between Italian and Slavic Cinemas, Jun 2023, p. 627 - 646
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- 10 Nov 2022
- 27 Jan 2023
- 07 Jun 2023
Abstract
This article studies the representation of Central Eastern European refugees in post-war Italian cinema. In our essay, we identify three films that deal with ‘displacement’: Lo sconosciuto di San Marino (The Unknown Man from San Marino) (Waszyński 1948), Donne senza nome (Women without Names) (Radványi 1950) and Stromboli: Terra di Dio (Stromboli) (Rossellini 1950). In the immediate post-war period, Italy was a country deeply affected by a Central Eastern European refugee crisis. As Hannah Arendt wrote, many people were in a ‘stateless’ situation either because of the war or because they had fled Soviet domination. The three films represent refugees marginalized for their social status, cultural background or nationality as well as for their sexuality or gender. Starting from Noa Steimatsky’s revealing revision of neorealism vis-à-vis the story of the refugee camp at Cinecittà, we analyse the responsibility cinema had in the erasure of these asylum-seekers from the screen and public awareness.
Funding
- Philosovietism in Post-Fascist Italian Film Culture (Award 2019/32/C/HS2/00536)