The State and Status of Film: A study of the effect of politics on Italian filmmaking

by Roberto SILVESTRI

The state of Italian film making comprises not only stalwarts like Nanni Moretti, Matteo Garrone, Francesco Rosi, Sabina Guzzanti, Paolo Sorrentino, Marco Tullio Giordana, but also names like Michelangelo Frammartino, Pietro Marcello, Alba Rohrwacher, Pippo Del Bono, Daniele Ciprì, Roberta Torre, Franco Maresco, and Stefano Savona; making the industry multi-faceted. The neo-realism of 1945-1948 saw a resurgence of a country in ruins and split by the European Recovery Program, which preferred American corporations taking advantage of low wages in a country beholden to the Western superpower. Today, that same country is still in ruin, spiritually and morally.