The Cinemas of Italian Migration. European and Transatlantic Narratives

The present volume The Cinemas of Italian Migration: European and Transatlantic Narratives is the result of a cooperation with many colleagues that lasted from 2009 to 2012. A large number of the articles date back to our conference “Figurations of Italian Migration in Inter-national Cinema” that took place at the University of Innsbruck from March 31 to April 2, 2011. We would like to thank the Italien-Zentrum, Leopold-Franzens Universität Innsbruck, Land Tirol, Land Vorarlberg and the Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano-Alto Adige for the financial support.
The films analyzed here make it apparent once again that we cannot disregard national attributions when problematizing identity constructions; the former are always tricky and hence have to be raised as issues. Many films, from Il cammino della speranza through to Into Paradiso, already question the attributions of italianità and the Other through their staging of open and closed spaces alone. To phrase it with all due caution: in terms of aesthe¬tics and content, certain procedures tend to crystallize what could be termed characteristics of the “Italian” film, which are the further writing, continued writing, and thus different writing of national film traditions in the name of transnational issues. For many filmmakers of the youngest generation, it is valid to state that—after the economic and political crisis of the Italian auteur cinema in the 1980s—the films made during the post-war decades serve as models for orientation both in terms of aesthetics and content. This serves to explain the frequent intra-medial recourses to neo-realistic procedures in order to lend authenticity to what is narrated, or the many variations of the melodramatic. These are tenden¬cies that may be ob-served in other European countries as well, such as France, Spain, Swit-zerland, or Austria, but which certainly have a parti¬cular cha¬rac¬teristic occurrence in the Nouvo Cinema Italia.
"The Cinemas of Italian Migration" places itself in a series of studies about film and migration and, in doing so, focuses on Italian migration, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, complements the perspective of film aesthetics by a perspective of cultural science. In this way, regions as well as genres and filmmakers that have often been neglected are given a voice. We hope that this contribution may serve as a stimulus for further research on Italian cinema in a trans-local and transcontinental perspective.