Italian cinema, Film culture, Fascism, Anti-Semitism, History of cinema, Propaganda, Racial laws.
Abstract
This essay revisits the debates concerning cinema and fascism exploring the reception of racial laws andanti-Semitism in Italian film culture, focusing on two important film magazines of the 1930s, Film and Bianco e Nero.If fascism believed in the potential of cinema as national industry and vehicle of propaganda, the circulation of anti-Semitic discourse and the effort to give a racial purity to Italian movies has always been underestimated by historians ofItalian cinema. In this context, Italian racial laws were seen as key-points for affirming national regeneration andspiritual values in Italian cinema, positioning it in a radical antagonism to the materialistic backdrop of Hollywood’sfilms.
