Screenwriting Manuals and Pedagogy in Italy from the 1930s to the End of the Twentieth Century

The essay will propose a historical excursus into screenwriting in Italy, while setting out to identify the main turning points in the process of its institutionalization as observed from a pedagogical and educational perspective. The aim is to understand the stages and agencies through which screenwriting gained cultural and institutional recognition in Italy, with the shift from the rank of “trade” (meant as craft “know-how”) to the status of “profession” (subsequent to acquiring certified skills). To this end, two specific fields will be taken into consideration: publishing (and more precisely, the journals, series, and manuals that have somehow played a significant role in the history of Italian screenwriting) and education (in this case looking at the birth of at least the main screenwriting academies and schools, and university screenwriting courses). As a starting point, the essay will take the establishment of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome (1935/36), that is, the public school that first introduced screenwriting to its course programme. The excursus will take us to the end of the millennium.