Screening Programmes and the Circulation of Films in the Fascist Cine-Clubs

This proposal focuses on the cultural practices related to film programming and film curatorship in the cine-club network of the Cineguf: a national association institutionalised by the Fascist regime. In fact, by the end of 1934, every former liberal film club or film association were systematically centralised into a brand new network of fascist film clubs, spreading all over the country, named Cineguf. The objective was to educate a new generation of film acolytes aligned to fascism. Despite the strongly hierarchic system, Cineguf could autonomously arrange richly heterogeneous and extremely cultivated sessions of film screenings: an alternative to the national film exhibition circuits. I will discuss how they made it, stressing some aspects of this practice relying on original archival documents and excavating the private correspondences of the organisers. I reconstruct how Cineguf members managed the provision of the film prints, and how prints circulated until 1943. I highlight the emerging awareness of the role of film archiving and film libraries, as well as unpredictable international connections that allowed the exhibition of (otherwise not-admitted-to screen) films in their original versions. Finally, an in-depth analysis of the film programs will let me question the crucial role of silent cinema in the shaping of their film culture and aesthetics. I stress the case of the Cineguf of Milan, discussing, the efforts to establish a regular film archive by later film directors Luigi Comencini and Alberto Lattuada (belonging the Cineguf); their role in managing the technical arrangements of the screening shows and the setting of a protocol for film curatorship and programming that laid the foundation to the post-war cine-club habits.