''Under the Southern Cross'' (Italian: ''Sotto la croce del sud'') is a 1938 Italian
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...
directed by
Guido Brignone
Guido Brignone (6 December 1886 – 6 March 1959) was an Italian film director and actor. He was the father of actress Lilla Brignone and younger brother of actress Mercedes Brignone.
Brignone was born in Milan, Italy. He was the first Italian ...
and starring
Antonio Centa,
Doris Duranti and
Enrico Glori. The film is set in Italian-occupied
Abyssinia
The Ethiopian Empire (), also formerly known by the exonym Abyssinia, or just simply known as Ethiopia (; Amharic and Tigrinya: ኢትዮጵያ , , Oromo: Itoophiyaa, Somali: Itoobiya, Afar: ''Itiyoophiyaa''), was an empire that historica ...
following the
recent Italian victory there. It was one of a sequence of eight films set in
Italy's African Empire during the
Fascist era that were released between 1936 and 1939.
[Palumbo p.294] The film is a
propaganda piece designed to support Fascist policy on empire and concerns about
inter-racial romances.
It was shot at the
Tirrenia Studios in
Tuscany
it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman)
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and
on location in the
Galla Territory of
Italian Ethiopia
Italian Ethiopia ( it, Etiopia italiana), also known as the Italian Empire of Ethiopia, was the territory of the Ethiopian Empire which was occupied by Italy for approximately five years. Italian Ethiopia was not an administrative entity, but the ...
.
Synopsis
Marco the owner of a
coffee plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
in Abyssinia, is trying to play his part in building the new Italian Empire. He becomes concerned however that his Italian staff, in the absence of their wives and families, are becoming overly attracted to native woman. His junior partner Paolo has to resist the allures of Mailù, an attractive young
Middle Eastern woman.
Main cast
*
Antonio Centa as Paolo
*
Doris Duranti as Mailù
*
Enrico Glori as Simone
*
Giovanni Grasso
Giovanni Grasso (11 November 1888 – 30 April 1963) was an Italian stage and film actor. He appeared in more than 80 films between 1910 and 1955. He was born and died in Catania, Sicily, Italy. Born into a family of marionettists, he was ...
as Marco, il capo della piantagione
*
Salvatore Cuffaro
Salvatore "Totò" Cuffaro (born 21 February 1958) is a former Italian politician and former President of Sicily. He has served an almost 5-year jail sentence for aiding Cosa Nostra.[Carlo Duse
Carlo Duse (5 January 1898 – 9 September 1956) Birth name: Carlo Artemio e Vittorio Duse. With mention in margin of his date and place of death. was an Italian film actor. He appeared in more than 80 films between 1916 and 1956. He was bor ...]
as Donati
*
Fausto Guerzoni
Fausto Guerzoni (1904–1967) was an Italian film actor.Freire-Medeiros p.193 A character actor, he appeared in Italian films in supporting roles from the mid-1930s.
Selected filmography
* ''Cavalry'' (1936)
* '' The Former Mattia Pascal'' (1937) ...
as Coppola
*
Enrico Marroni as Todini
*
Felice Minotti
Felice Minotti (19 November 1887 – 21 March 1963) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 91 films between 1908 and 1963.
Selected filmography
* '' The Revenge of Maciste'' (1921)
* '' Maciste on Vacation'' (1921)
* ''The House of Pulci ...
as Riva
*
Piero Pastore
Pietro Mario Pastore, also known as Piero Pastore (3 April 1908, in Padua – 8 January 1968, in Rome) was an Italian professional footballer who played as a striker; he later became an actor.
Football career
Pastore was the youngest ever playe ...
as Casale
References
Bibliography
* Forgacs, David. ''Italy's Margins: Social Exclusion and Nation Formation since 1861''. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
* Palumbo, Patrizia. ''A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture from Post-unification to the Present''. University of California Press, 2003.
* Reich, Jacqueline & Garofalo, Piero. ''Re-viewing Fascism: Italian Cinema, 1922-1943''. Indiana University Press, 2002.
External links
*
1938 films
Italian drama films
Italian black-and-white films
1938 drama films
1930s Italian-language films
Films directed by Guido Brignone
Films set in Ethiopia
Films shot in Ethiopia
Films shot at Tirrenia Studios
Films scored by Renzo Rossellini
1930s Italian films
{{1930s-Italy-film-stub