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This contribution will examine different communicative and narrative strategies adopted by some documentary productions in order to visualize something invisible, like the virus and its effects. Through the case studies I will take into account, my intent is to reflect upon the pandemic narration, which replaces or alternates the photographic realism of the images of pain and suffering, intended as scientific and incontrovertible proof of the virus manifestation, with a modernist narrative, mixing interviews with infographic material, maps, dashboards, photomicrographs, and computer graphics animations. Despite their profound mediation by software that makes pictures out of numbers, these informatic images, reported daily in news channels and broadcasts as well, besides shaping the relationships between scientific research, documentary, and its explanatory and pedagogical power to narrate, reconfigure the collective imagination of the pandemic in a bioinformation era.

Special issue on Italian popular cinema and sexuality.

The journey that refugees have to undertake to escape war and persecution has become a necessary topic to tackle in recent years, especially for documentary as a genre and a form. In order to reflect upon the media witnessing and the migrant self-representation in the digital age, my aim in this paper is to take into account Les Sauteurs (2016), a film made by Moritz Sibert, Estephan Wagner and the African migrant Abou Bakar Sidibe. The man narrates his personal experience hoping to make it into Europe by climbing over the barrier between Morocco and the outlying Spanish city of Melilla. More than conveying denunciation and social critique, lending a voice to those who don’t usually get one and offering a platform for migrants to become actors and principal protagonists, Les Sauteurs sheds a light upon what has been invisible or discarded, providing a counterpoint narration from migrant subject position. The film reflects upon the very notion of self-representation, from representing to constituting himself, because Sidibe becomes more aware of being both the subject matter and the subject making the film. He becomes more conscious of the importance of exposing the harsh realities which surround him, in order to make the viewer bear witness, opening up to new forms of visualization concerning the migrant experience.

Il concetto di trauma, nella sua declinazione storica o personale, ha assunto ormai un ruolo centrale nel cinema documentario contemporaneo, che non si presenta semplicemente come parte di un processo volto alla mera rappresentazione dell���evento ma diventa in s�� uno strumento epistemologico, capace di orientare lo studio delle modalit�� attraverso le quali memoria e rielaborazione vengono costruite nell���atto stesso di filmare. Il cinema documentario post-traumatico si interroga sulla relazione che intercorre tra trauma storico e le modalit��, cos�� come le forme, per rappresentarlo. Il seguente contributo si pone l���obiettivo di esplorare un aspetto chiave per riflettere sulla ri-messa in scena del trauma nel cinema documentario contemporaneo ovvero il rapporto che si instaura tra spazio, evento e memoria. Nello specifico prender�� in esame Nostalgia de la luz (Nostalgia della luce, Guzm��n 2010), Dubina dva (Depth Two, Glavonic 2016) e Le dernier des injustes (L���ultimo degli ingiusti, Lanzmann 2013), film che ri-disegnano e riconfigurano il paesaggio, riscoprendo le tracce traumatiche, seppur ad una prima vista invisibili, in spazi ancora infestati dai fantasmi del passato., SigMa - Rivista di Letterature comparate, Teatro e Arti dello spettacolo, N. 5 (2021)

In the present essay, I will take into account some Italian war films made in the 1950s, such as “Carica eroica” (“Heroic Charge”, 1952, Francesco De Robertis), “I sette dell’Orsa maggiore” (“Hell Raiders of the Deep”, 1953, Duilio Coletti), “Mizar - Sabotaggio in mare” (Mizar, 1954, Francesco De Robertis), “Divisione Folgore” (“Folgore Division“, 1954, Duilio Coletti), “La grande speranza” (“Submarine Attack”, 1954, Duilio Coletti) in order to reflect upon their role in building Italy’s memory of its past as well as the perception of Italian war crimes in public opinion. These productions extend a unifying narrative of the war, consolidating the myth of the “good Italian” (“italiani brava gente”). Through the inclusion of the soldier in collective memory by silencing his role as aggressor, Italian combat films participated and consolidated the process of collective amnesia about the fascist regime and how they influenced the way in which Italian viewers constructed a shared sense of the past., Schermi. Storie e culture del cinema e dei media in Italia, V. 5 N. 9 (2021)

The journey that refugees have to undertake to escape war and persecution has become a necessary topic to tackle in recent years, especially for documentary as a genre and a form. In order to reflect upon the media witnessing and the migrant self-representation in the digital age, my aim in this paper is to take into account Les Sauteurs (2016), a film made by Moritz Sibert, Estephan Wagner and the African migrant Abou Bakar Sidibe. The man narrates his personal experience hoping to make it into Europe by climbing over the barrier between Morocco and the outlying Spanish city of Melilla. More than conveying denunciation and social critique, lending a voice to those who don’t usually get one and offering a platform for migrants to become actors and principal protagonists, Les Sauteurs sheds a light upon what has been invisible or discarded, providing a counterpoint narration from migrant subject position. The film reflects upon the very notion of self-representation, from representing to constituting himself, because Sidibe becomes more aware of being both the subject matter and the subject making the film. He becomes more conscious of the importance of exposing the harsh realities which surround him, in order to make the viewer bear witness, opening up to new forms of visualization concerning the migrant experience., Cinergie – Il Cinema e le altre Arti, No 16 (2019)

Sin dalla metà degli anni Cinquanta, la televisione, attraverso produzioni come Le avventure dell’arte (1954) e Musei d’Italia (1953-1959), conformi al modello pedagogico e informativo delle origini, ha svolto un ruolo centrale nella divulgazione dell’arte così come nello sviluppo della conoscenza culturale e del senso critico dello spettatore. Tuttavia, negli ultimissimi anni, lo scenario è cambiato radicalmente, a seguito delle esigenze del mercato e delle sperimentazioni del mezzo audiovisivo. Nel seguente saggio concentrerò la mia attenzione sui film d’arte prodotti da Sky: Musei Vaticani in 3D (2013), Firenze e gli Uffizi in 3D (2015), San Pietro e le Basiliche Papali di Roma in 3D (2016), Raffaello – Il Principe delle Arti in 3D (2017), produzioni esportate in sessanta paesi nel mondo e destinate poi al passaggio televisivo. Attraverso innovative tecniche di modeling e dimensionalizzazione, l’utilizzo del 3D, l’ultra definizione, ricostruzioni storiche, suggestive riprese aeree, accompagnamento musicale, queste produzioni sono un esempio paradigmatico per riflettere sul profondo processo di ricodifica concernente la divulgazione, così come la critica, dell’arte in televisione. Facendo riferimento alle riflessioni estetiche e teoriche riguardanti il racconto dell’arte attraverso le potenzialità del mezzo audiovisivo, da Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti a Giulio Carlo Argan, da Aldo Grasso a Vincenzo Trione, il mio intento è quello di sottolineare inoltre come i film presi in esame, cercando di fornire un’esperienza unica e irripetibile, spettacolare, multisensoriale e multidimensionale, provochino una ri-concettualizzazione visiva e percettiva nel fruire e nell’esperire fenomenologicamente l’opera d’arte., piano b. Arti e culture visive, Vol 3, No 2 (2018): L’arte mediata: dal Critofilm al Talent Show

Prendendo in esame alcuni cinegiornali prodotti dall’Istituto Luce dal settembre 1935, quando fu costituito il “Reparto Fotocinematografico per l’Africa Orientale” (RAO) fino al 1942, il mio intento nel seguente contributo è quello di riflettere sulla definizione dei caratteri identitari promossi dal regime attraverso le modalità di rappresentazione dell’alterità africana. Grazie a specifiche tematiche e strategie visive e narrative, queste produzioni formano, ridefiniscono e proiettano una visione dell’identità fascista comparata alla cultura africana durante il colonialismo., Cinema e identità italiana

The cinematic image itself could serve as a medium that can represent a conceptualization of time thanks to its formal elements, which temporalize space and spatialize time, rendering duration and the experience of passing time. Taking into account Frammartino’s cinema “Il dono” (2003), “Le quattro volte” (2010) and “Alberi” (2013), this essay aims to highlight how particular strategies to frame the passing of time, in line with the durational tendency in structural experimental cinema and its acute manifestation in “slow” contemporary films, encourage a contemplative spectatorial practice. This invites the viewer to wander within the frame and to focus on details which would otherwise remain veiled in a conventional form of narration., Schermi. Storie e culture del cinema e dei media in Italia, V. 2 N. 4 (2018)