More information is now available on Non solo dive (Not Only Divas), a conference and retrospective on women and silent Italian cinema. The conference takes place in Bologna, 14-16 December, and here’s the line-up:
Friday, December 14
2.30 PM – Welcoming addresses
3.00 PM-6.30 PM – Session I:
Jane Gaines – Duke University and Columbia University (USA)
Are They Us?: Our Work on Women Working in the International Silent Film Industry
Christine Gledhill – University of Sunderland (UK)
Rethinking Women’s Film History from Britain
Elda Guerra – Associazione Orlando
Beyond Boundaries: The Women’s Movement at the turn of the 20th Century, and the Emergence of a New SubjectivityAlberto Friedemann – Associazione Fert
Women Entrepreneurs in the Turin Film Industry during the Silent Period
Andrea Palladino – Documentary Filmmaker
The Amazing Story of Frieda Klug: Research Hypothesis for a Documentary about the Origins of Italian CinemaDiscussion
Saturday, December 15
9.30 AM-1.00 PM – Session II:
Cristina Jandelli – University of Florence
“The Sharpest of Them All”: Diana Karenne
Teresa Antolin – Archivio in penombra
Elena and the Men: Francesca Bertini and Film Historiography
Elena Dagrada – State University of Milan
The Temptation of Silence: Eleonora Duse and the CinemaElena Mosconi – Catholic University of Milan
Divas and Anti-Divas in Early Italian Cinema: Elettra Raggio and Astrea
Valeria Palumbo – Journalist, L’Europeo
Viper: the Myth of Anna Fougez
Ester De Miro D’Ayeta – University of Genoa
Sewing Celluloid Ribbons: The Obscure Career of Esterina Zuccarone, Editor and Working Woman in TurinDiscussion
3.00 PM-6.30 PM – Session III:
Luca Mazzei – University of Florence
Alone in the Dark. Memories and Narratives of Italian Female Viewers between 1898 and 1916
Silvio Alovisio – University of Turin
The Image of the Spectatrix in the Italian Film Press of the Twenties
Gina Annunziata – University of Siena
Matilde Serao and the CinemaRoberta Gandolfi – University of Parma
“New Women” of the Italian Theater between Reform and Tradition, Feminism and Modernism
Vittorio Martinelli – Italian Association for Research in Film History
Origins of the Italian Star System
Claudia Gianetto – Museo Nazionale del Cinema
Gigetta Morano: An “Irresistible Force”Discussion
Sunday, December 16
10.00 AM – 1.00 PM – Session IV:
Kim Tomadjoglou – American Film Institute (USA)
Rethinking the Cinema of Elvira Notari
Irela Nuñez, Franca Farina – Cineteca Nazionale
Women’s Films of the Cineteca Nazionale: Restored and to be Restored
Micaela Veronesi – Italian Association for Research in Film History
A Woman Wants to “Recreate the World”. Umanità, by Elvira GiallanellaStella Dagna – Museo Nazionale del Cinema
In the Giant’s Shadow. Second Lead Actresses in the Maciste series
Elena D’Amelio – University of Padua
Damned and Beautiful. Powerful Women of the Italian Epic GenreDiscussion
Monica Dall’Asta – University of Bologna
Conclusions
That’s an impressive, specialised but wide-ranging line-up, and to complement it there’s a retrospective of relevant films running 2-15 December at the Cinema Lumière, Bologna. The highlights are two new restorations: Elvira Giallanella’s pacifist film Umanità (1919), restored by the Cineteca Nazionale and the Orlando Association, and Elvira Notari’s ‘A Santanotte (1921), a Neapolitan melodrama, restored by the same institutions in association with George Eastman House. Notari is the subject of Giuliana Bruno’s influential study, Streetwalking on a Ruined Map, and is now something of a cult figure. There are other Notari films on show, a collection of comedienne Lea Giunchi’s short films, Cenere (1916) (the only film of the legendary stage actress Elenora Duse), Francesca Bertini and Gustavo Serena’s Assunta Spina (1915), Giulia Rizzotto’s A Mosca Cieca (1921), and more.
The full conference and retrospective programme is downloadable here (PDF, 212MB, in Italian), and the website www.nonsolodive.com (also in Italian) will be active from 26 November. Clearly, knowing Italian will help, but English translation will be provided throughout the conference.
The rationale behind the event is given in this earlier post.
The Bioscope 