(in)Visibili / (in)Visible Women Le pioniere del cinema / Pioneers of Cinema

This volume is the catalogue of the exhibition promoted by Cinecittà and held in the Centrale della Grafica in Rome from 16 May to 28 September 2025. Covering a period ranging from the early twentieth century to the 1940s, it seeks to reaffirm the centrality of women’s role in shaping the world of cinema, by valuing their experiences and recovering their contributions – too often overlooked in historiographical accounts – so rediscovering works of outstanding modernity that offered emancipated, nonconformist, and strikingly contemporary female models.

The role of women in early Italian cinema is a story of enforced marginalisation. Recent studies are bringing to light an increasing number of names — producers, writers considered “atypical” for the time, screenwriters, camera operators, and above all directors — who have long been buried under a thick layer of dust and silence.

One need only think of Elvira Notari, absolutely the first Italian woman to be a film director and one of the first in the history of world cinema, but also of Giulia Rizzotto, the director of Scugnì (1918), and Gemma Bellincioni, with a dozen titles to her credit between 1917 and 1923. And, again, producers and distributors such as Elettra Raggio and Bianca Virginia Camagni, who founded their own production companies, and the many story-originators and screenwriters such as Gilda Mignonette.

Introductory texts by Alessandro Giuli and Lucia Borgonzoni. Essays by: Chiara Sbarigia, Carlo Chatrian, Laura Delli Colli, Gianluca Farinelli. Portraits by: Brunella Bolloli, Paola Casella, Alessandra De Luca, Lavinia Farnese, Maria Rosa Mancuso, Teresa Marchesi, Pier Paolo Mocci, Flavio Natalia, Agnese Pini, Federico Pontiggia, Ilaria Ravarino, Caterina Soffici, Francesco Specchia, Giovanna Vitale. With a text by Margaret Mazzantini.

Bilingual edition in Italian and English, translated by Sylvia Notini.