Description
Book SynopsisWandering Women: Urban Ecologies of Italian Feminist Filmmakingexploresthe work of contemporary Italian women directors from feminist and ecological perspectives. Mostly relegated to the margins of the cultural scene, and concerned with women's marginality, the compelling films Wandering Women sheds light on tell stories of displacement and liminality that unfold through the act of walking in the city.The unusual emptiness of the cities that the nomadic female protagonists traverse highlights the absence of, and their wish for, life-sustaining communities.Laura Di Bianco contends thatwomen's urban filmmakingwhile articulating a claim for belonging and asserting cinematic and social agencybrings into view landscapes of the Anthropocene, where urban decay and the erasure of nature intersect with human alienation.Though a minor cinema, it is also a powerful movement of resistance against the dominant male narratives about the world we inhabit. Based on interviews with directors,Wanderin
Trade ReviewLaura Di Bianco combines ecocritical and feminist perspectives with acute awareness of social inequalities as she travels through the landscape of contemporary women's cinema in Italy. For its interdisciplinary outlook, Wandering Women will be of great interest to readers in Italian studies, gender studies, and environmental humanities. They will discover eight remarkable women film directors spanning three generations, who treat the urban environment as a living ecology.
-- Giuliana Bruno, Harvard University, author of Streetwalking on a Ruined Map
Wandering Women invites readers on a lively voyage through Italian urban environments, from Milan to Rome, from Naples to Taranto and Reggio Calabria, following a dynamic canon of films made by Italian women directors. Addressing questions of ideology, geography, ecology, and aesthetics, Di Bianco's engrossing book examines figures both on screen and behind the scenes, showing how innovative filmmakers and their films reciprocally shape cinematic, urban, and affective places. This groundbreaking study is built on Di Bianco's deep knowledge of cinematic history and its many protagonists—directors, production crews, cities, ecologies, landscapes. Wandering Women is a convivial, generative conversation across generations of filmmakers. It is an innovative and timely treatise on ecology, cinema, and the Anthropocene in Italy, one that is destined to become a landmark in Italian film studies.
-- Elena Past, author of Italian Ecocinema Beyond the Human
Table of ContentsPreface: Women Make Movies in Italy
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation
Introduction: Mapping Italian Women's Filmmaking
1. Walking in Resilient Cities: Traveling with Cecilia
Fegatello: The Nightless City
2. Urban Wandering, Scrapbooking, and Filmmaking: As the Shadow, My Tomorrow, Poetry You See Me
Fegatello: Ophelia Does Not Drown
3. Mothers and Daughters: Stories of Survival and Care: The White Space, I Like to Work
Fegatello: All About You
4. Coming of Age in the City: Garbage, Corpses, and Miracles: Corpo Celeste, Domenica, Lost Kisses
Fegatello: The Macaluso Sisters
5. A Psychogeology of the City: N-Able
Fegatello: In This World
Epilogue: The Cities of Women
Filmography
Bibliography
Index
