ABSTRACT
The history and consequences of Italian colonialism were until quite recently little known in Italy and abroad. Italian expansionism is usually linked to the aggressions in Ethiopia (1935–1936), which was called Abyssinia before 1935, of the Fascist regime led by Benito Mussolini (1922–1945) but the foundations of this empire were laid in the liberal period, with the occupations of the East African countries of Eritrea (1890) and Somalia (1908) and the seizure of Ottoman-held Libya in 1912 (Labanca, 2002; Ben-Ghiat and Fuller, 2005; Palumbo, 2003; Andall and Duncan, 2005). This neglected history has translated into an obscured film history: the dozens of documentary and feature films made on imperial themes are little studied, apart from historical colossals such as Cabiria (Pastrone, 1914) and Scipione l’Africano/Scipio the African (Gallone, 1936) (Gili and Brunetta, 1990; Elena, 1999; Hay, 1987; Coletti, 2006). The present essay discusses the 1920s, when the Fascists laid the groundwork for the acquisition of territories that would transform the Mediterranean from Italy’s “prison” into the hinge of an empire that stretched from the Levant to Africa and the Red Sea (Fuller, 2007). In the realm of cinema, the 1920s is normally considered a period of crisis; World War One decimated Italy’s previously profitable and prolific national industry, dispersing underemployed Italian film professionals to the film capitals of Europe. Yet research over the last decades has revealed a more robust filmic landscape than previously imagined, as well as the influences of Italians’ years abroad on their future film aesthetics, production methods, and directing styles (Ricci, 2008; Martinelli, 1978; Farassino, 2000, pp. 83–106).
