The cinema of Italy comprises the films made within Italy or by Italian directors. Since its beginning, Italian cinema has influenced film movements worldwide. Italy is one of the birthplaces of art cinema and the stylistic aspect of film has been one of the most important factors in the history of Italian film. As of 2018, Italian films have won 14 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film as well as 12 Palmes d'Or, one Academy Award for Best Picture and many Golden Lions and Golden Bears.
Italian neorealism, also known as the Golden Age of Italian Cinema, was a national film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class. They are filmed on location, frequently with non-professional actors. They primarily address the difficult economic and moral conditions of post-World War II Italy, representing changes in the Italian psyche and conditions of everyday life, including poverty, oppression, injustice and desperation. Italian Neorealist filmmakers used their films to tell stories that explored the contemporary daily life and struggles of Italians in the post-war period. Italian neorealist films have become explanatory discourse for future generations to understand the history of Italy during a specific period through the storytelling of social life in the context, reflecting the documentary and communicative nature of the film. Some people believe that neorealistic films evolved from Soviet montage films. But in reality, compared to Soviet filmmakers describing the people's opposition to class struggle through their films, neorealist films aim to showcase individuals' resistance to reality in a social environment.
The unification of Italy, also known as the Risorgimento, was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of Sardinia, resulting in the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. Inspired by the rebellions in the 1820s and 1830s against the outcome of the Congress of Vienna, the unification process was precipitated by the Revolutions of 1848, and reached completion in 1870 after the capture of Rome and its designation as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.
The Redshirts, also called the Red coats, are volunteers who followed the Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi during his campaigns. The name derived from the colour of their shirts or loose-fitting blouses that the volunteers, usually called Garibaldini, wore in lieu of a uniform.
Ossessione is a 1943 Italian crime drama film directed and co-written by Luchino Visconti, in his directorial debut. It is an unauthorized and uncredited adaptation of the 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice by American author James M. Cain, and stars Clara Calamai, Massimo Girotti, and Juan de Landa in the leading roles. It is often considered to be the first Italian neorealist film, though there is some debate about whether such a categorization is accurate.
Henry Theodore Tuckerman was an American writer, essayist and critic.
The Expedition of the Thousand was an event of the unification of Italy that took place in 1860. A corps of volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed from Quarto al Mare near Genoa and landed in Marsala, Sicily, in order to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, ruled by the Spanish House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. The name of the expedition derives from the initial number of participants, which was around 1,000 people.
Bitter Rice is a 1949 Italian neorealist crime drama film directed and co-written by Giuseppe De Santis, produced by Dino De Laurentiis, and starring Vittorio Gassman, Doris Dowling, Silvana Mangano, and Raf Vallone. The story follows a pair of fugitives, who hide among the rice fields of northern Italy. The Italian title of the film is based on a pun; since the Italian word riso can mean either "rice" or "laughter", riso amaro can be taken to mean either "bitter laughter" or "bitter rice".
Jessie White Mario was an English writer and philanthropist. She is sometimes referred to as "Hurricane Jessie" in the Italian press.
Renato Castellani was an Italian film director and screenwriter.
Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. He contributed to Italian unification (Risorgimento) and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. He is considered to be one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland", along with Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and Giuseppe Mazzini. Garibaldi is also known as the "Hero of the Two Worlds" because of his military enterprises in South America and Europe.
The Battle of Calatafimi was fought on the 15 May 1860 between Giuseppe Garibaldi's Redshirts and the troops of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies at Calatafimi, Sicily, as part of the Expedition of the Thousand. The battle was the first of Garibaldi's victory during his invasion of Sicily in 1860 and saw his 'Thousand' defeat a larger Neapolitan army sent from Palermo to block the roads to the Sicilian capital.
In the 20th century, and especially since the end of the Second World War, the received interpretation of Italian unification, the Risorgimento, has become the object of historical revisionism. The justifications offered for unification, the methods employed to realise it and the benefits supposedly accruing to unified Italy are frequent targets of the revisionists. Some schools have called the Risorgimento an imperialist or colonialist venture imposed by Savoy.
Giuseppe De Nigris was an Italian painter, who depicted genre scenes and still-lifes in a style known as Neo-Pompeian.
Gianfranco Giachetti was an Italian stage and film actor. He played the role of Father Costanzo in Alessandro Blasetti's historical film 1860. The same year he appeared in The Old Guard as Doctor Cardini, the father of a young blackshirt who is killed in a street fight.
Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, Isolabella and Leri, generally known as the Count of Cavour or simply Cavour, was an Italian politician, statesman, businessman, economist, and noble, and a leading figure in the movement towards Italian unification. He was one of the leaders of the Historical Right and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1852, a position he maintained until his death, throughout the Second Italian War of Independence and Giuseppe Garibaldi's campaigns to unite Italy. After the declaration of a united Kingdom of Italy, Cavour took office as the first Prime Minister of Italy; he died after only three months in office and did not live to see the Roman Question solved through the complete unification of the country after the Capture of Rome in 1870.
Achille Cantoni was an Italian war volunteer who fought in the Second and Third Italian Wars of Independence. He is credited with saving the life of Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian general and central figure of the Risorgimento, during a battle in the town of Velletri in 1849. He died at the Battle of Mentana on November 3, 1867. After his death, Giuseppe Garibaldi wrote a novel entitled Cantoni il volontario in his honor.
Events from the year 1900 in Italy.
The Southern Army was the force of around 50,000 Italian and foreign volunteers which formed as a result of the Expedition of the Thousand. The name was coined by Giuseppe Garibaldi. Its officers wore red uniforms and so - like the Thousand - the force's rank and file became known as redshirts. It was dissolved before the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy.
This bibliography of Italy is a list of books in the English language on the general topic of Italy.
