Social Space in Italian Films

Films can (re)construct social spaces with great accuracy. For this reason, the use of analytical tools borrowed from film studies can provide an innovative methodological framework for the study of urban space. From post-war neorealism to the most recent works by contemporary directors, Italian cinema has developed artistic strategies for the mise-en-scène of an urban space inscribed with social constellations and their respective transformations. This field of research is to be fruitfully explored through questions developed by the various disciplines involved in the study of social space. The analysis of film can provide fundamental insights into the construction and representation of social space at a given historical moment.
Two series of film seminars, each consisting of a curated series of film projections followed by a close-reading seminar the day after, have been realized in cooperation with film scholars from the Università di Roma Tre and the Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”: first, “Geografie della migrazione: Luoghi dell’immaginario e spazio sociale nel cinema italiano” (2019/2020), which was concluded with a publication in 2022, and then “Il lavoro in città: Spazio urbano, corpi femminili e forme del lavoro nel cinema italiano degli anni ’50 e ’60” (2023).