Visuality and Migration: Two Crises in Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary “Fire at Sea”

Visuality and Migration. A video essay by Erik Scaltriti

I am very happy to announce the publication of my video essay and commentary [in]Transition issue 7.3

Can moving images narrate the migration phenomena without stereotyping it? Offering a site to explore the deep connection between the parallel crises of migration and Western visuality, “Fire at Sea” contrasts several media stereotypes on migration. However, I argue that it foregrounds a false contraposition between a humanitarian vision of migration and a state vision of it.

Thank you to all who supported this project and gave their feedback!

“Arrivederci Saigon”: screening and discussion

At the XV Symposium on the History of Social Conflict, Damiano Garofalo and I dialogued with the director Wilma Labate.

Arrivederci Saigon (“Goodbye Saigon”, 2018), a documentary which revisits the historical events of 1968 from a unique perspective. Le Stars is an Italian girl-only band of teenagers from Tuscany. In 1968, they receive an offer they can’t turn down, a tour in the Far East: Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore. They set off hoping for success but found themselves in the middle of the Vietnam war. Fifty years later, they tell the story of their adventure amongst American soldiers, remote jungle bases and soul music.

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.

38th Cincinnati Conference on Romance Languages and Literatures 2018

Panel Cinematic Representations of Sexuality, Marginalized Identities, and Migration. Moderator: T.E. Arce (University of Cincinnati). 4/6/2018.

The hybridity of Migration in Italian Contemporary Cinema: Crialese’s “Once We Were Strangers” (1997) and Rosi’s “Fire at Sea” (2016).
by Erik Scaltriti

Emanuele Crialese’s cinematography refuses the closures of genre or gender by its narratives which unfold between fantasy, open-ended narratives, and the reality of clashes and relationships. The academic investigation has largely addressed the major works of the Italian director, producing a rich literature of journal articles and book chapters. However, less critical attention has been paid to his debut film Once We Were Strangers (1997).

In this paper, I compare Crialese’s use of realist/imaginary strains to Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare, 2016). I argue that Crialese and Rosi do not step outside the Italian cinema tradition but develop their original narratives interweaving national and global perspectives. Blurring film genre’s borders, they both explore the nature of the Western gaze through hybrid representations of migration phenomena.

Practicum in Translation: Subtitles Workshop at Colorado College 2014