Cinema of Italy

The cinema of Italy (, ) comprises the films made within Italy or by Italian directors. Since its beginning, Italian cinema has influenced film movements worldwide. Italy is one of the birthplaces of art cinema and the stylistic aspect of film has been the most important factor in the history of Italian film. As of 2018, Italian films have won 14 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (the most of any country) as well as 12 Palmes d'Or (the second-most of any country), one Academy Award for Best Picture and many Golden Lions and Golden Bears.

The history of Italian cinema began a few months after the Lumière brothers began motion picture exhibitions. The first Italian director is considered to be Vittorio Calcina, a collaborator of the Lumière Brothers, who filmed Pope Leo XIII in 1896. The first films date back to 1896 and were made in the main cities of the Italian peninsula. These brief experiments immediately met the curiosity of the popular class, encouraging operators to produce new films until they laid the foundations for the birth of a true film industry. In the early years of the 20th century, silent cinema developed, bringing numerous Italian stars to the forefront until the end of World War I. In the early 1900s, artistic and epic films such as '' Otello'' (1906), ''The Last Days of Pompeii'' (1908), ''L'Inferno'' (1911), '' Quo Vadis'' (1913), and ''Cabiria'' (1914), were made as adaptations of books or stage plays. Italian filmmakers were using complex set designs, lavish costumes, and record budgets, to produce pioneering films.

The oldest European avant-garde cinema movement, Italian futurism, took place in the late 1910s. After a period of decline in the 1920s, the Italian film industry was revitalized in the 1930s with the arrival of sound film. A popular Italian genre during this period, the Telefoni Bianchi, consisted of comedies with glamorous backgrounds. Calligrafismo was instead in a sharp contrast to Telefoni Bianchi-American style comedies and is rather artistic, highly formalistic, expressive in complexity and deals mainly with contemporary literary material. While Italy's Fascist government provided financial support for the nation's film industry, notably the construction of the Cinecittà studios (the largest film studio in Europe), it also engaged in censorship, and thus many Italian films produced in the late 1930s were propaganda films. A new era took place at the end of World War II with the birth of the influential Italian neorealist movement, reaching a vast consensus of audiences and critics throughout the post-war period, and which launched the directorial careers of Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, and Vittorio De Sica. Neorealism declined in the late 1950s in favor of lighter films, such as those of the Commedia all'italiana genre and important directors like Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni. Actresses such as Sophia Loren, Giulietta Masina and Gina Lollobrigida achieved international stardom during this period.

From the mid-1950s to the end of the 1970s, Commedia all'italiana and many other genres arose due to auteur cinema, and Italian cinema reached a position of great prestige both nationally and abroad. The Spaghetti Western achieved popularity in the mid-1960s, peaking with Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy, which featured enigmatic scores by composer Ennio Morricone, which have become popular culture icons of the Western genre. Erotic Italian thrillers, or giallos, produced by directors such as Mario Bava and Dario Argento in the 1970s, influenced the horror genre worldwide. Since the 1980s, due to multiple factors, Italian production has gone through a crisis that has not prevented the production of quality films in the 1990s and into the new millennium, thanks to a revival of Italian cinema, awarded and appreciated all over the world. During the 1980s and 1990s, directors such as Ermanno Olmi, Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuseppe Tornatore, Gabriele Salvatores and Roberto Benigni brought critical acclaim back to Italian cinema, while the most popular directors of the 2000s and 2010s were Matteo Garrone, Paolo Sorrentino, Marco Bellocchio, Nanni Moretti and Marco Tullio Giordana.

The country is also famed for its prestigious Venice Film Festival, the oldest film festival in the world, held annually since 1932 and awarding the Golden Lion; and for the David di Donatello. In 2008 the Venice Days ("Giornate degli Autori"), a section held in parallel to the Venice Film Festival, has produced in collaboration with Cinecittà studios and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage a list of 100 films that have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978: the "100 Italian films to be saved".

History

1890s

The history of Italian cinema began a few months after the French Lumière brothers, who made the first public screening of a film on 28 December 1895, an event considered the birth of cinema, began motion picture exhibitions. The first Italian director is considered to be Vittorio Calcina, a collaborator of the Lumière Brothers, who filmed Pope Leo XIII on 26 February 1896 in the short film ''Sua Santità papa Leone XIII'' ("His Holiness Pope Leo XIII"). He then became the official photographer of the House of Savoy, the Italian ruling dynasty from 1861 to 1946. In this role he filmed the first Italian film, ''Sua Maestà il Re Umberto e Sua Maestà la Regina Margherita a passeggio per il parco a Monza'' ("His Majesty the King Umberto and His Majesty the Queen Margherita strolling through the Monza Park"), believed to have been lost until it was rediscovered by the Cineteca Nazionale in 1979.

The Lumière brothers commenced public screenings in Italy in 1896 starting in March, in Rome and Milan; in April in Naples, Salerno and Bari; in June in Livorno; in August in Bergamo, Bologna and Ravenna; in October in Ancona; and in December in Turin, Pescara and Reggio Calabria. Not long before, in 1895, Filoteo Alberini patented his "kinetograph", a shooting and projecting device not unlike that of the Lumières brothers.

Italian Lumière trainees produced short films documenting everyday life and comic strips in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Before long, other pioneers made their way. Italo Pacchioni, Arturo Ambrosio, Giovanni Vitrotti and Roberto Omegna were also active. The success of the short films were immediate. The cinema fascinated with its ability to show distant geographic realities with unprecedented precision and, vice versa, to immortalize everyday moments. Sporting events, local events, intense road traffic, the arrival of a train, visits by famous people, but also natural disasters and calamities are filmed.

Titles of the time include, ''Arrivo del treno alla Stazione di Milano'' ("Arrival of the train at Milan station") (1896), ''La battaglia di neve'' ("The snow battle") (1896), ''la gabbia dei matti'' ("The madmen's cage") (1896), ''Ballo in famiglia'' ("Family dance") (1896), ''Il finto storpio al Castello Sforzesco'' ("The fake cripple at the Castello Sforzesco") (1896) and ''La Fiera di Porta Genova'' ("The fair of Porta Genova") (1898), all shot by Italo Pacchioni, who was also the inventor of a camera and projector, inspired by the cinematograph of Lumière brothers, kept at the Cineteca Italiana in Milan.

If the interest of the masses were enthusiastic, the technological novelty would likely be snubbed, at least at the beginning, by intellectuals and the press. Despite initial doubt, in just two years, cinema climbs the hierarchy of society, intriguing the wealthier classes. On 28 January 1897, prince Victor Emmanuel and princess Elena of Montenegro attended a screening organized by Vittorio Calcina, in a room of the Pitti Palace in Florence. Interested in experimenting with the new medium, they were filmed in ''S.A.R. il Principe di Napoli e la Principessa Elena visitano il battistero di S. Giovanni a Firenze '' ("Their real heights the Prince of Naples and Princess Elena visit the baptistery of Saint John in Florence") and on the day of their wedding in ''Dimostrazione popolare alle LL. AA. i Principi sposi (al Pantheon – Roma)'' ("Popular demonstration at the their heights the princes spouses (at the Pantheon – Rome)").

1900s

In the early years of the 20th century, the phenomenon of itinerant cinemas developed throughout Italy, providing literacy of the visual medium. This innovative form of spectacle ran out, in a short time, a number of optical attractions such as magic lanterns, cineographers, stereoscopes, panoramas and dioramas that had fueled the European imagination and favored the circulation of a common market for images. The nascent Italian cinema, therefore, is still linked to the traditional shows of the '' commedia dell'arte'' or to those typical of circus folklore. Public screenings take place in the streets, in cafes or in variety theaters in the presence of a swindler who has the task of promoting and enriching the story.

Between 1903 and 1909 the itinerant cinema Italian film was quieting, until then considered as a freak phenomenon, took on consistency assuming the characteristics of an authentic industry, led by three major organizations: Cines, based in Rome; and the Turin-based companies Ambrosio Film and Itala Film. Other companies soon followed in Milan and Naples, and these early companies quickly attained a respectable production quality and were able to market their products both within Italy and abroad. Early Italian films typically consisted of adaptations of books or stage plays, such as Mario Caserini's '' Otello'' (1906) and Arturo Ambrosio's 1908 adaptation of the novel, ''The Last Days of Pompeii''. Also popular during this period were films about historical figures, such as Caserini's ''Beatrice Cenci'' (1909) and Ugo Falena's ''Lucrezia Borgia'' (1910).

In 1905, Cines inaugurated the genre of the historical film, which in this decade gave great fortune to many Italian filmmakers. One of the first of these films was ''La presa di Roma'' (1905), lasting 10 minutes, and made by Filoteo Alberini. The operator employs for the first time actors of theatrical origin, exploiting the historical argument in a popular and pedagogical key. The film, assimilating Manzoni's lesson of making historical fiction plausible, reconstructs the Capture of Rome on 20 September 1870.

The discovery of the spectacular potential of the cinematographic medium favored the development of a cinema with great ambitions, capable of incorporating all the cultural and historical suggestions of the country. Education is an inexhaustible source of ideas, ideas that are easily assimilated not only by a cultured public but also by the masses. Dozens of characters from texts make their appearance on the big screen such as the Count of Monte Cristo, Giordano Bruno, Judith beheading Holofernes, Francesca da Rimini, Lorenzino de' Medici, Rigoletto, Count Ugolino and others. From an iconographic point of view, the main references are the great Renaissance and neoclassical artists, as well as symbolists and popular illustrations.

1910s

In the 1910s, the Italian film industry developed rapidly. In 1912, the year of the greatest expansion, 569 films were produced in Turin, 420 in Rome and 120 in Milan. Popular early Italian actors included Emilio Ghione, Alberto Collo, Bartolomeo Pagano, Amleto Novelli, Lyda Borelli, Ida Carloni Talli, Lidia Quaranta and Maria Jacobini. Nino Martoglio's ''Lost in Darkness'', produced in 1914, documented life in the slums of Naples, and is considered a precursor to the Neorealist movement of the 1940s and 1950s.

In the three years leading up to World War I, as production consolidates, mythological, comedy and drama films are exported all over the world. In the meantime, in the actor's field, the phenomenon of stardom was born which for a few years will experience unstoppable success. With the end of the decade, Rome definitively established itself as the main production center; this will remain, despite the crises that will periodically shake the industry, right up to the present day.

Historical blockbusters (1910s)

The archetypes of this film genre was ''The Last Days of Pompeii'' (1908), by Arturo Ambrosio and Luigi Maggi and ''Nero'' (1909), by Maggi himself and Arrigo Frusta. This last film was inspired by the work of Pietro Cossa who is iconographically based on the etchings of Bartolomeo Pinelli, neoclassicism and the show ''Nero, or the Destruction of Rome'' represented by the Barnum circus. Followed by ''Marin Faliero, Doge of Venice'' (1909), by Giuseppe De Liguoro, ''Otello'' (1909) by Yambo and '' L'Odissea'' (1911), by Bertolini, Padovan and De Liguoro.

''L'Inferno'', produced by Milano Films in 1911, even before being an adaptation of Dante's canticle, was a cinematic translation of Gustave Doré's engravings that experiments with the integration of optical effects and stage action, and it was the first Italian feature film ever made. ''The Last Days of Pompeii'' (1913), by Eleuterio Rodolfi, used innovative special effects.

Enrico Guazzone's 1913 film '' Quo Vadis'' was one of the first blockbusters in the history of cinema, using thousands of extras and a lavish set design. The international success of the film marked the maturation of the genre and allows Guazzoni to make increasingly spectacular films such as '' Antony and Cleopatra'' (1913) and ''Julius Caesar'' (1914). Giovanni Pastrone's 1914 film ''Cabiria'' was an even larger production, requiring two years and a record budget to produce, it was the first epic film ever made and it is considered the most famous Italian silent film. It was also the first film in history to be shown in the White House. After Guazzoni came Emilio Ghione, Febo Mari, Carmine Gallone, Giulio Antamoro and many others who contributed to the expansion of the genre.

After the great success of ''Cabiria'', with the changing tastes of the public and the first signs of the industrial crisis, the genre began to show signs of crisis. Pastrone's plan to adapt the ''Bible'' with thousands of extras remained unfulfilled. Antamoro's ''Christus'' (1916) and Guazzoni's '' The Crusaders'' (1918) remained notable for their iconographic complexity but offered no substantial novelties. Despite sporadic attempts to reconnect with the ''grandeur'' of the past, the trend of historical blockbusters was interrupted at the beginning of the 1920s.

Proto-giallo (1910s)

In the first and second decade of the 20th century, came a prolific film production aimed at investigative and mystery contents, supported by a well-assorted Italian and foreign literature that favors its transposition into film. What would later take on the synthesis of the ''giallo'', in fact, was produced and distributed at the dawn of Italian cinema. The most prolific production houses in the 1910s were Cines, Ambrosio Film, Itala Film, Aquila Films, Milano Films and many others, while titles such as ''Il delitto del magistrato'' (1907), ''Il cadavere misterioso'' (1908), ''Il piccolo Sherlock Holmes'' (1909), ''L'abisso'' (1910) and ''Alibi atroce'' (1910), breached the imagination of the first cinema users who demanded a greater offer. The popular consensus is remarkable to the point of encouraging the film industry to invest further production resources, since these films are also distributed on the French and Anglo-Saxon markets. Thus directors among the most prolific in this field such as Oreste Mentasti, Luigi Maggi, Arrigo Frusta and Ubaldo Maria Del Colle, together with many others less known, direct several dozen films where classic narrative elements of the silent proto-giallo (mystery, crime, investigation investigative and final twist) constitute the structural aspects of cinematic representation.

Elvira Notari, the first female director ever in Italy and one of the premieres in the history of world cinema, directs ''Carmela, la sartina di Montesanto'' (1916), while in Palermo, Lucarelli Film produced ''La cassaforte n. 8'' (1914) and ''Ipnotismo'' (1914), the Azzurri Film ''La regina della notte'' (1915) and the Lumen Film ''Il romanzo fantastico del Dr. Mercanton o il giustiziere invisibile'' (1915) and ''Profumo mortale'' (1915), all films ascribable to the proto-giallo that multiplied in the following decades, becoming preparatory to the subsequent birth of the ''giallo''.

Stardom (1910s)

Between 1913 and 1920 there was the rise, development and decline of the phenomenon of cinematographic stardom, born with the release of '' Ma l'amor mio non-muore'' (1913), by Mario Caserini. The film had great success with the public and encoded the setting and aesthetics of female stardom. Within just a few years, Eleonora Duse, Pina Menichelli, Rina De Liguoro, Leda Gys, Hesperia, Vittoria Lepanto, Mary Cleo Tarlarini and Italia Almirante Manzini established themselves.

Films such as '' Fior di male'' (1914), by Carmine Gallone, '' Il fuoco'' (1915), by Giovanni Pastrone, ''Rapsodia satanica'' (1917), by Nino Oxilia and ''Cenere'' (1917), by Febo Mari, changed the national costume, imposing canons of beauty, role models and objects of desire. These models, strongly stylized according to the cultural and artistic trends of the time, moved away from naturalism in favor of melodramatic acting, pictorial gesture and theatrical pose; all favored by the incessant use of close-up which focuses the attention on the expressiveness of the actress.

Comic short films (1910s)

The most successful comedian in Italy was André Deed, better known in Italy as ''Cretinetti'', star of comic short film for Itala Film. Its success paved the way for Marcel Fabre (''Robinet''), Ernesto Vaser (''Fricot'') and many others. The only actor of a certain substance, however, was Ferdinand Guillaume, who became famous with the stage name of ''Polidor''.

The historical interest of these films lay in their ability to reveal the aspirations and fears of a petty-bourgeois society torn between the desire for affirmation and the uncertainties of the present. It was significant that the protagonists of Italian comedians never place themselves in open contrast with society or embody the desire for social revenge (as happens for example with Charlie Chaplin), but rather tried to integrate into a strongly desired world.

Futurist cinema (1910s)

Italian futurist cinema was the oldest movement of European avant-garde cinema. Italian futurism, an artistic and social movement, impacted the Italian film industry from 1916 to 1919. It influenced Russian Futurist cinema and German Expressionist cinema. Its cultural importance was considerable and influenced all subsequent avant-gardes, as well as some authors of narrative cinema; its echo expands to the dreamlike visions of some films by Alfred Hitchcock.

Futurism emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. Its key figures were the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, and Luigi Russolo. It glorified modernity and aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past.

The 1916 Manifesto of Futuristic Cinematography was signed by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Armando Ginna, Bruno Corra, Giacomo Balla and others. To the Futurists, cinema was an ideal art form, being a fresh medium, and able to be manipulated by speed, special effects and editing. Most of the futuristic-themed films of this period have been lost, but critics cite ''Thaïs'' (1917) by Anton Giulio Bragaglia as one of the most influential, serving as the main inspiration for German Expressionist cinema in the following decade.

The Italian film industry struggled against rising foreign competition in the years following World War I. Several major studios, among them Cines and Ambrosio, formed the Unione Cinematografica Italiana to coordinate a national strategy for film production. This effort was largely unsuccessful, however, due to a wide disconnect between production and exhibition (some movies weren't released until several years after they were produced).

1920s

With the end of World War I, Italian cinema went through a period of crisis due to many factors such as production disorganization, increased costs, technological backwardness, loss of foreign markets and inability to cope with international competition, in particular with that of Hollywood. The main causes included the lack of a generational change with a production still dominated by filmmakers and producers of literary training, unable to face the challenges of modernity. The first half of the 1920s marked a sharp decrease in production; from 350 films produced in 1921 to 60 in 1924.

Literature and theater are still the preferred narrative sources. The feuilletons resist, mostly taken from classical or popular texts and directed by specialists such as Roberto Roberti and the religious blockbusters of Giulio Antamoro. On the basis of the latest generation of divas, a sentimental cinema for women spread, centered on figures on the margins of society who, instead of struggling to emancipate themselves (as happens in contemporary Hollywood cinema), go through an authentic ordeal in order to preserve their own virtue. Protest and rebellion by the female protagonists are out of the question. It is a strongly conservative cinema, tied to social rules upset by the war and in the process of dissolution throughout Europe. An exemplary case is that of '' A Woman's Story'' (1920) by Eugenio Perego, which uses an original narrative construction to propose a 19th-century morality with melodramatic tones.

A particular genre is that of a realist setting, due to the work of the first female director of Italian cinema, Elvira Notari, who directs numerous films influenced by popular theater and taken from famous dramas, Neapolitan songs, appendix novels or inspired by facts of chronicle. Another film with a realist setting is '' Lost in the Dark'' (1914) by director Nino Martoglio, considered by critics as a prime example of neorealist cinema.

The revival of Italian cinema took place at the end of the decade with the production of larger-scale films. During this period, a group of intellectuals close to the fortnightly ''cinematografo'' led by Alessandro Blasetti launched a program that was as simple as it was ambitious. Aware of the Italian cultural backwardness, they decided to break all ties with the previous tradition through a rediscovery of the peasant world, hitherto practically absent in Italian cinema. ''Sun'' (1929) by Alessandro Blasetti shows the evident influence of the Soviet and German avant-gardes in an attempt to renew Italian cinema in accordance with the interests of the fascist regime. ''Rails'' (1929) by Mario Camerini blends the traditional genre of comedy with kammerspiel and realist film, revealing the director's ability to outline the characters of the middle class. While not comparable to the best results of international cinema of the period, the works of Camerini and Blasetti testify to a generational transition between Italian directors and intellectuals, and above all an emancipation from literary models and an approach to the tastes of the public.

1930s

The sound cinema arrived in Italy in 1930, three years after the release of ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), and immediately led to a debate on the validity of spoken cinema and its relationship with the theater. Some directors enthusiastically face the new challenge. The advent of talkies led to stricter censorship by the Fascist government.

The first Italian talking picture was ''The Song of Love'' (1930) by Gennaro Righelli, which was a great success with the public. Alessandro Blasetti also experimented with the use of an optical track for sound in the film ''Resurrection'' (1931), shot before ''The Song of Love'' but released a few months later. Similar to Righelli's film is '' What Scoundrels Men Are!'' (1932) by Mario Camerini, which has the merit of making Vittorio De Sica debut on the screens. Historical films such as Blasetti's '' 1860'' (1934) and Carmine Gallone's '' Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal'' (1937) were also popular during this period.

With the transition to sound cinema, most of the Italian silent film actors, still linked to theatrical stylization, find themselves disqualified. The era of divas, dandies and strongmen, who barely survived the 1920s, is definitely over. Even if some performers will move on to directing or producing, the arrival of sound favors the generational change and the consequent modernization of the structures.

Italian-born director Frank Capra received three Academy Awards for Best Director for the films ''It Happened One Night'' (1934, the first Big Five winner at the Academy Awards), ''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' (1936) and '' You Can't Take It with You'' (1938).

Cinecittà (1930s–present)

In 1934, the Italian government created the General Directorate for Cinema (''Direzione Generale per le Cinematografia''), and appointed Luigi Freddi its director. With the approval of Benito Mussolini, this directorate called for the establishment of a town southeast of Rome devoted exclusively to cinema, dubbed the Cinecittà ("Cinema City"), under the slogan "''Il cinema è l'arma più forte''" ("Cinema is the most powerful weapon"). The studios were constructed during the Fascist era as part of a plan to revive the Italian film industry, which had reached its low point in 1931.

Mussolini himself inaugurated the studios on 21 April 1937. Post-production units and sets were constructed and heavily used initially. Early films such as '' Scipio Africanus'' (1937) and '' The Iron Crown'' (1941) showcased the technological advancement of the studios. Seven thousand people were involved in the filming of the battle scene from ''Scipio Africanus'', and live elephants were brought in as a part of the re-enactment of the Battle of Zama.

The Cinecittà provided everything necessary for filmmaking: theaters, technical services, and even a cinematography school, the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, for younger apprentices. The Cinecittà studios were Europe's most advanced production facilities, and greatly boosted the technical quality of Italian films. Many films are still shot entirely in Cinecittà. Benito Mussolini founded Cinecittà studio also for the production of Fascist propaganda until World War II.

During this period, Mussolini's son, Vittorio, created a national production company and organized the work of noted authors, directors and actors (including even some political opponents), thereby creating an interesting communication network among them, which produced several noted friendships and stimulated cultural interaction.

With an area of 400,000 square metres (99 acres), it is still the largest film studio in Europe, and is considered the hub of Italian cinema. Filmmakers such as Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Mel Gibson have worked at Cinecittà. More than 3,000 movies have been filmed there, of which 90 received an Academy Award nomination and 47 of these won it.

Telefoni Bianchi (1930s–1940s)

During the 1930s, light comedies known as Telefoni Bianchi ("white telephones") were predominant in Italian cinema. These films, which featured lavish set designs, promoted conservative values and respect for authority, and thus typically avoided the scrutiny of government censors. Telefoni Bianchi proved to be the testing ground of numerous screenwriters destined to impose themselves in the following decades (including Cesare Zavattini and Sergio Amidei), and above all of numerous set designers such as Guido Fiorini, Gino Carlo Sensani and Antonio Valente, who, by virtue successful graphic inventions led these productions to become a kind of "summa" of the petty-bourgeois aesthetics of the time.

The first film of the genre Telefoni Bianchi was '' The Private Secretary'' (1931), by Goffredo Alessandrini. Among the authors, Mario Camerini is the most representative director of the genre. After having practiced the most diverse trends in the 1930s, he happily moved into the territory of sentimental comedy with '' What Scoundrels Men Are!'' (1932), ''Il signor Max'' (1937) and ''Department Store'' (1939). In other films he compares himself with the Hollywood-style comedy on the model of Frank Capra ('' Heartbeat'', 1939) and the surreal one of René Clair ('' I'll Give a Million'', 1936). Camerini is interested in the figure of the typical and popular Italian, so much so that he anticipates some elements of the future Italian comedy. His major interpreter, Vittorio De Sica, will continue his lesson in ''Maddalena, Zero for Conduct'' (1940) and '' Teresa Venerdì'' (1941), emphasizing above all the direction of the actors and the care for the settings.

Other directors include Mario Mattoli ('' Schoolgirl Diary'', 1941), Jean de Limur (''Apparition'', 1944) and Max Neufeld (''The House of Shame'', 1938; '' A Thousand Lire a Month'', 1939). The realist comedies of Mario Bonnard (''Before the Postman'', 1942; ''The Peddler and the Lady'', 1943) are partially different in character, which partially deviate from the imprint of Telefoni Bianchi.

Fascist propaganda (1930s–1940s)

In the fascist propaganda cinema, at the beginning, the representations of the squads and the first fascist actions were rare. '' The Old Guard'' (1934), by Alessandro Blasetti evokes the supposed vitalistic spontaneity of squadism with populist tones, but is not appreciated by official critics. '' Black Shirt'' (1933), by Giovacchino Forzano, made for the 10th anniversary of the March on Rome, celebrated the regime's policies (the reclamation of the Pontine marshes and the construction of Littoria) alternating narrative sequences with documentary passages.

With political consolidation, the government authority required the film industry to strengthen the regime's identification with the country's history and culture. Hence the intention to reread Italian history in an authoritarian perspective, teleologically reducing every past event to a harbinger of the "fascist revolution", in continuity with the historiographical work of Gioacchino Volpe. After the first attempts in this direction, aimed above all at underlining the alleged link between the Risorgimento and Fascism ('' Villafranca'' by Forzano, 1933; '' 1860'' by Blasetti, 1933), the trend reached its peak just before the war. '' Cavalry'' (1936), by Goffredo Alessandrini, evokes the nobility of the Savoy fighters by presenting their deeds as anticipations of squadism. ''Condottieri'' (1937) by Luis Trenker, tells the story of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, explicitly establishing a parallel with Benito Mussolini, while '' Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal'' (1937) by Carmine Gallone (one of the greatest financial efforts of the time), it celebrates the Roman Empire and indirectly the Fascist Empire.

The invasion of Ethiopia gives Italian directors the opportunity to extend the horizons of the settings. '' The Great Appeal'' (1936) by Mario Camerini, exalts imperialism by describing the "new land" as an opportunity for work and redemption, contrasting the heroism of young soldiers with bourgeois fearlessness. The anti-pacifist controversy that accompanies colonial enterprises is also evident in '' Lo squadrone bianco'' (1936) by Augusto Genina, which combines propaganda rhetoric with notable battle sequences shot in the Italian Tripolitania desert. Most of the films celebrating the empire are predominantly documentaries, aimed at disguising the war as a struggle of civilization against barbarism. The Spanish Civil War is described in the documentaries ''Los novios de la muerte'' (1936) by Romolo Marcellini and ''Arriba España, España una, grande, libre!'' (1939) by Giorgio Ferroni, and is the backdrop for another dozen films, among which the most spectacular is '' The Siege of the Alcazar'' (1940) by Augusto Genina.

Films such as ''Pietro Micca'' (1938) by Aldo Vergano, '' Ettore Fieramosca'' (1938), made in the same year by Alessandro Blasetti, and ''Fanfulla da Lodi'' (1940) by Giulio Antamoro can also be counted as propaganda films (albeit indirect), in which, a pretext for the epic narration of historical events, a clear apology for dedication to the homeland (in some cases even to the point of personal sacrifice) is made in the same vein as colonial films with a contemporary setting.

With Italy's participation in the World War II, the fascist regime further strengthens its control over production and requires a more decisive commitment to propaganda. In addition to the now canonical documentaries, short films and newsreels, there is also an increase in feature films in praise of Italian war enterprises. Among the most representative we find '' Bengasi'' (1942) by Genina, ''Gente dell'aria'' (1943) by Esodo Pratelli, ''The Three Pilots'' (1942) by Mario Mattoli (based on a screenplay by Vittorio Mussolini), ''Il treno crociato'' (1943) by Carlo Campogalliani, ''Harlem'' (1943) by Carmine Gallone and '' Men of the Mountain'' (1943) by Aldo Vergano under the supervision of Blasetti. ''Uomini sul fondo'' (1941) by Francesco De Robertis is also notable due to its almost documentary approach.

The most successful film of the period is ''We the Living'' (1942) by Goffredo Alessandrini, made as a single film, but then distributed in two parts due to its excessive length. Referable to the genre of anti-communist drama, this sombre melodrama (set in the Soviet Union) is inspired by the novel of the same name by the writer Ayn Rand which exalts the most radical philosophical individualism. Precisely because of this generic criticism of authoritarianism, the diptych could be interpreted as a mild accusation against the fascist regime.

Among the directors who give their contribution to the war propaganda there is also Roberto Rossellini, author of a trilogy composed of '' The White Ship'' (1941), '' A Pilot Returns'' (1942) and ''The Man with a Cross'' (1943). Anticipating in some ways his works of maturity, the director adopted a modest and immediate style, which does not contrast the effectiveness of the propaganda but neither does it exalt the dominant war rhetoric; it was the same anti-spectacular approach to which he remained faithful throughout his life.

1940s

Neorealism (1940s–1950s)

By the end of World War II, the Italian "neorealist" movement had begun to take shape. Neorealist films typically dealt with the working class (in contrast to the ''Telefoni Bianchi''), and were shot on location. Many neorealist films, but not all, used non-professional actors. Though the term "neorealism" was used for the first time to describe Luchino Visconti’s 1943 film, ''Ossessione'', there were several important precursors to the movement, most notably Camerini's '' What Scoundrels Men Are!'' (1932), which was the first Italian film shot entirely on location, and Blasetti's 1942 film, '' Four Steps in the Clouds''.

''Ossessione'' angered Fascist officials. Upon viewing the film, Vittorio Mussolini is reported to have shouted, "This is not Italy!" before walking out of the theater. The film was subsequently banned in the Fascist-controlled parts of Italy. While neorealism exploded after the war, and was incredibly influential at the international level, neorealist films made up only a small percentage of Italian films produced during this period, as postwar Italian moviegoers preferred escapist comedies starring actors such as Totò and Alberto Sordi.

Neorealist works such as Roberto Rossellini's trilogy ''Rome, Open City'' (1945), '' Paisà'' (1946), and ''Germany, Year Zero'' (1948), with professional actors such as Anna Magnani and a number of non-professional actors, attempted to describe the difficult economic and moral conditions of postwar Italy and the changes in public mentality in everyday life. Visconti's '' The Earth Trembles'' (1948) was shot on location in a Sicilian fishing village, and used local non-professional actors. Giuseppe De Santis, on other hand, used actors such as Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman in his 1949 film, ''Bitter Rice'', which is set in the Po Valley during rice-harvesting season.

Poetry and cruelty of life were harmonically combined in the works that Vittorio De Sica wrote and directed together with screenwriter Cesare Zavattini: among them, '' Shoeshine'' (1946), '' The Bicycle Thief'' (1948) and '' Miracle in Milan'' (1951). The 1952 film '' Umberto D.'' showed a poor old man with his little dog, who must beg for alms against his dignity in the loneliness of the new society. This work is perhaps De Sica's masterpiece and one of the most important works in Italian cinema. It was not a commercial success and since then it has been shown on Italian television only a few times. Yet it is perhaps the most violent attack, in the apparent quietness of the action, against the rules of the new economy, the new mentality, the new values, and it embodies both a conservative and a progressive view.

Although ''Umberto D.'' is considered the end of the neorealist period, later films such as Federico Fellini's ''La Strada'' (1954) and De Sica's 1960 film ''Two Women'' (for which Sophia Loren won the Oscar for Best Actress) are grouped with the genre. Director Pier Paolo Pasolini's first film, ''Accattone'' (1961), shows a strong neorealist influence. Italian neorealist cinema influenced filmmakers around the world, and helped inspire other film movements, such as the French New Wave and the Polish Film School. The Neorealist period is often simply referred to as "The Golden Age" of Italian cinema by critics, filmmakers, and scholars.

File:Girotti e Calamai.jpg, ''Ossessione'' (1943), by Luchino Visconti.
File:ROMA C~1.JPG, A still shot from ''Rome, Open City'' (1945), by Roberto Rossellini.
LadriDiBicicletteStaiola1948.jpg, ''Bicycle Thieves'' (1948), by Vittorio De Sica, ranked among the best movies ever made and part of the canon of classic cinema.
Battle-of-Algiers-screenshot.jpg, Gillo Pontecorvo's ''The Battle of Algiers'' (1966) is often associated with Italian neorealism.

Calligrafismo (1940s)

Calligrafismo is in a sharp contrast to Telefoni Bianchi-American style comedies and is rather artistic, highly formalistic, expressive in complexity and deals mainly with contemporary literary material, above all the pieces of Italian realism from authors like Corrado Alvaro, Ennio Flaiano, Emilio Cecchi, Francesco Pasinetti, Vitaliano Brancati, Mario Bonfantini and Umberto Barbaro.

The best-known exponent of this genre is Mario Soldati, a long-time writer and director destined to establish himself with films of literary ancestry and solid formal structure. His films put at the center of the story characters endowed with a dramatic and psychological strength foreign to both white-phone cinema and propaganda films, and found in works such as '' Dora Nelson'' (1939), '' Piccolo mondo antico'' (1941), '' Tragic Night'' (1942), '' Malombra'' (1942) and '' In High Places'' (1943). Luigi Chiarini, already active as a critic, deepens the trend in his ''Sleeping Beauty'' (1942), '' Street of the Five Moons'' (1942) and ''The Innkeeper'' (1944). The internal conflicts of the characters and the scenographic richness are also recurrent in the first films by Alberto Lattuada (''Giacomo the Idealist'', 1943) and Renato Castellani ('' A Pistol Shot'', 1942), dominated by a sense of moral and cultural decay that seems to anticipate the end of the war.

Another important example of a calligraphic film is the film version of '' The Betrothed'' (1941), by Mario Camerini (very faithful in the staging of Manzoni's masterpiece), which due to the perceived income, became the most popular feature film between 1941 and 1942.

Animation (1940s–present)

The pioneer of the Italian cartoon was Francesco Guido, better known as Gibba. Immediately after the end of World War II, he produced the first animated medium-length film of Italian cinema entitled ''L'ultimo sciuscià'' (1946), which took up themes typical of neorealism and in the following decade the feature films ''Rompicollo and I picchiatelli'', in collaboration with Antonio Attanasi. In the 1970s, after many animated documentaries, Gibba himself will return to the feature film with the erotic ''Il nano e la strega'' (1973) and ''Il racconto della giungla'' (1974). Also interesting are the contributions of the painter and set designer Emanuele Luzzati who, after some valuable short films, made in 1976 one of the masterpieces of Italian animation: ''Il flauto magico'' ("The Magic Flute"), based on the homonymous opera by Mozart.

In 1949, the designer Nino Pagot presented ''The Dynamite Brothers'' at the Venice Film Festival, one of the first animated feature films of the time, released in theaters in conjunction with ''La Rosa di Bagdad'' (1949), made by the animator Anton Gino Domeneghini. In the early 1950s, the cartoonist Romano Scarpa created the short film ''La piccola fiammiferaia'' (1953), which remains, like the two previous films, little more than an isolated case. Apart from these examples, Italian animation in the 1950s and 1960s failed to become a major reality and remains confined to the television sector, due to the various commissions provided by the Carosello container.

But it is with Bruno Bozzetto that the Italian cartoon reaches an international dimension: his debut feature film ''West and Soda'' (1965), an irresistible caricature of the Western genre, received acclaim from both audiences and critics. A few years later his second work entitled ''VIP my Brother Superman'' was released, distributed in 1968. After many satirical short films (centered on the popular figure of "Signor Rossi") he returned to the feature film with what is considered his most ambitious work, ''Allegro Non Troppo'' (1977). Inspired by the well-known Disney '' Fantasia'', it is a mixed media film, in which animated episodes are molded to the notes of many classical music pieces. Another illustrator to underline is the artist Pino Zac who in 1971 shot (again with mixed technique) ''The Nonexistent Knight'', based on the novel of the same name by Italo Calvino.

In the 1990s, Italian animation entered a new phase of production due to the Turin Lanterna Magica studio which in 1996, under the direction of Enzo D'Alò, created the intriguing Christmas fairy tale ''La freccia azzurra'', based on a short story by Gianni Rodari. The film was a success and paved the way for other feature films. In fact, in 1998, '' Lucky and Zorba'' based on a novel by Luis Sepúlveda was distributed, which attracted the favor of the public, reaching a new apex in the Italian animated cinema.

The director Enzo d'Alò, who separated from the Lanterna Magica studio, produced other films in the following years such as ''Momo'' (2001) and '' Opopomoz'' (2003). The Turin studio distributed on its behalf the films ''Aida of the Trees'' (2001) and ''Totò Sapore e la magica storia della pizza'' (2003), accompanied by a good response at the box office. In 2003, the first entirely Italian animated film in computer graphics was released entitled ''L'apetta Giulia and Signora Vita'', directed by Paolo Modugno. To underline the work ''La Storia di Leo'' (2007) by director Mario Cambi, winner, the following year, at the Giffoni Film Festival.

In 2010, the first Italian animated film in 3D technology was made, directed by Iginio Straffi, entitled '' Winx Club 3D: Magical Adventure'', based on the homonymous series; in the meantime Enzo D'Alò returns to theaters, presenting his ''Pinocchio'' (2012). In 2012, the film '' Gladiators of Rome'', also shot in 3D technology, received credit from the public, followed by the feature film '' Winx Club: The Mystery of the Abyss'' (2014), both again by Iginio Straffi. Finally, '' The Art of Happiness'' (2013) by Alessandro Rak, a film made in Naples by 40 authors, including only 10 designers and animators from the Mad Entertainment studio, a true absolute record for an animated film was made. '' Cinderella the Cat'' (2017), taken from the text ''Pentamerone'' by Giambattista Basile, came out of the same studio. The work won two David di Donatello's, one of which was for special effects, becoming the first animated film to be nominated, and win, in this category.

1950s

Starting from the mid-1950s, Italian cinema freed itself from neorealism by tackling purely existential topics, films with different styles and points of view, often more introspective than descriptive. Thus we are witnessing a new flowering of filmmakers who contribute in a fundamental way to the development of the art.

Michelangelo Antonioni is the first to establish himself, becoming a reference author for all contemporary cinema. This charge of novelty is recognizable from the beginning as the director's first work, ''Story of a Love Affair'' (1950), marks an indelible break with the world of neorealism and the consequent birth of a modern cinema. Antonioni investigated the world of the Italian bourgeoisie with a critical eye, left out of the post-war cinematic lens. In doing so, works of psychological research such as '' I Vinti'' (1952), '' The Lady Without Camelias'' (1953) and ''Le Amiche'' (1955), free adaptation of the short story ''Tra donne sole'' by Cesare Pavese, came to light. In 1957, he staged the unusual proletarian drama '' Il Grido'', with which he obtained critical acclaim.

In 1955, the David di Donatello was established, with its Best Picture category being awarded for the first time only in 1970.

Federico Fellini (1950s–1990s)

Federico Fellini is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Fellini won the Palme d'Or for ''La Dolce Vita'', was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, and won four in the category of Best Foreign Language Film, the most for any director in the history of the academy. He received an honorary award for Lifetime Achievement at the 65th Academy Awards in Los Angeles. His other well-known films include ''La Strada'' (1954), ''Nights of Cabiria'' (1957), ''Juliet of the Spirits'' (1967), ''Satyricon'' (1969), '' Roma'' (1972), '' Amarcord'' (1973), and '' Fellini's Casanova'' (1976).

Personal and highly idiosyncratic visions of society, Fellini's films are a unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy and desire. The adjectives "Fellinian" and "Felliniesque" are "synonymous with any kind of extravagant, fanciful, even baroque image in the cinema and in art in general". ''La Dolce Vita'' contributed the term ''paparazzi'' to the English language, derived from Paparazzo, the photographer friend of journalist Marcello Rubini ( Marcello Mastroianni).

Contemporary filmmakers such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, Emir Kusturica, and David Lynch have cited Fellini's influence on their work.

Pink neorealism (1950s–1960s)

Although '' Umberto D.'' is considered the end of the neorealist period this, subsequent works turned toward lighter, sweetened and mildly optimistic atmospheres, more coherent with the improving conditions of Italy just before the economic boom; this genre became known as ''pink neorealism''.

The precursor of pink neorealism was Renato Castellani, who helped bring realist comedy into vogue with '' Under the Sun of Rome'' (1948) and '' It's Forever Springtime'' (1949), both shot on location and with non-professional actors, and above all with public success and criticism of '' Two Cents Worth of Hope'' (1952), which laid the foundations for pink neorealism.

Notable films of pink neorealism, which combine popular comedy and realist motifs, are '' Pane, amore e fantasia'' (1953) by Luigi Comencini