Italian Cinema(s) Abroad Conference

Panel: Italian Cinema in North America: Micro and Macro-Histories. Chair: Giuliano Migliori (The Ohio State University).

Competing or Collaborating? A Case Study of Postwar Relationships between Hollywood and Cinecittà through the Kiralfy Archive
by Erik Scaltriti

In the post-WWII era, Italian movie theaters were “invaded” by Hollywood productions, by “the full range of armament then available, from western to melodramas, from comedies to adventure and epic pictures” (Gian Piero Brunetta). Complicating this debated vision, the unexplored Kiralfy archive provides a primary source that challenges this idea of invasion. Conserved at The Ohio State Library, this small archive contains several micro-histories narrated by the personal files of Alexander Kiralfy, a white-collar worker of the Account and Statistic Department of Paramount International Film in New York. For example, the programs of the Thalia Summer Film Festival provide us a picture of Italian films circulation in New York, in the 1950s and the 1960s. I argue that the post-WWII era does not represent a period of commercial war between American and Italian film industries. Instead, it marks a new stage of the unbalanced cooperation between Hollywood and Cinecittà.