Despite the powerful anti-political impulses that have pervaded Italian society in recent years, Italian cinema has sustained and renewed its longstanding engagement with questions of politics, both in the narrow definition of the term, and in a wider understanding that takes in reflections on public life, imaginary, and national identity. This book explores these political dimensions of contemporary Italian cinema by looking at three complementary strands: the thematics of contemporary political film from a variety of perspectives; the most prominent directors currently engaged in this filone; and case studies of the films that best represent this engagement. Conceived and edited by two Italian film scholars working in radically different academic settings, Italian Political Cinema brings together a wide array of critical positions and research from Italy, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The tripartite structure and international perspective create a volume that is an accessible entry-point into a subject that continues to attract critical and cultural attention, both inside and outside of academia.

Giancarlo Lombardi is Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at the College of Staten Island and at the Graduate Center/CUNY. He has published extensively on Italian film, television studies, and contemporary Italian literature. He is the author of Rooms with a View: Feminist Diary Fiction (2002) and the co-editor of Remembering Aldo Moro (2012) and Terrorism, Italian Style (2012). Christian Uva is Associate Professor at the University of Roma Tre. His books include Schermi di piombo. Il terrorismo nel cinema italiano (2007), Sergio Leone. Il cinema come favola politica (2013), and L'immagine politica. Forme del contropotere tra cinema, video e fotografie nell' Italia degli anni Settanta (2015). He is the author of numerous articles in international journals and edited volumes, both on the intersection of politics and history in Italian cinema and on the theoretical implications of the advent of the digital era.