Produzione Sud. Cinema, Tv e Mezzogiorno

Italy’s South seen through the lens: Italian film and television looks at the Mezzogiorno
In this essay, the author, Italo Moscati, director, screenwriter and critic, seeks to synthesize the long, intense and varied relationship that Italian cinema and tv have had with the Mezzogiorno, the Italian South. According to Moscati, the South has been viewed both alternatively, and simultaneously, as Paradise and Inferno, and these visions – he holds - are reflected in the way Italian cinema and television have looked at the Mezzogiorno since the end of World War Two. Interestingly enough, prior to that, says Moscati, no Italian film had ever «featured» the Italian south as a either background or social statement. After the war, this changed, and through the early 1990’s the South and it’s problems of underdevelopment and crime would continue to engage the talents of Italy’s major firm directors. In contrast to all this, says Moscati, is Italian television’s failure to date to directly examine the problems of the South in its own dramatic productions.