I “valori spirituali del cinema italiano”. Antisemitismo e politica della razza nelle riviste cinematografiche degli anni trenta

Abstract

This essay revisits the debates concerning cinema and fascism exploring the reception of racial laws and
anti-Semitism in Italian film culture, focusing on two important film magazines of the 1930s, Film and Bianco e Nero.
If fascism believed in the potential of cinema as national industry and vehicle of propaganda, the circulation of anti-
Semitic discourse and the effort to give a racial purity to Italian movies has always been underestimated by historians of
Italian cinema. In this context, Italian racial laws were seen as key-points for affirming national regeneration and
spiritual values in Italian cinema, positioning it in a radical antagonism to the materialistic backdrop of Hollywood’s
films.