Repression and nightmares. Italian cinema in the shadow of the Shoah

Abstract

A glimpse on the production of Italian films that have dealt more or less directly with the Shoah theme,
from Goffredo Alessandrini’s L’ebreo errante (1948) to Claudio Gora’s Febbre di vivere (1953) from Sergio
Capogna’s Diario di un italiano (1970-71) to the films of the Naziexploitation (a genre of which Italy has the
controversial pride to have been, at the beginning of the 1980s, the world’s leading producer and exporter) in search of
a red thread joining together titles diverse by style, genre and approach to matter. The purpose of this work is to rethink
the main (and often unknown) stages of a collective remission of responsibility, but also to emphasize those moments in
which the past has found its way back to haunt us, leaving us with a less edulcorated and self-acquitting cinema, and to
lead the long and for the most part untrodden way towards the recognition of our true past.