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ABSTRACT
This article examines film consumption within the Fascist empire of Italian East Africa (1936–1941). In dialogue with recent scholarship exploring social and cultural aspects of the Italian presence in the Horn of Africa, it draws on original archival research to investigate the stories, theories and practices underpinning the Fascist intervention. The implementation of itinerant screening by state authorities as well as the organization of distribution, censorship and consumption’s spaces concerning movie theatres will be interpreted within a broad critical framework, which will highlight the impact of the Fascist intervention in the field of colonial culture compared with previous or coeval experiences and projects of film consumption in Africa. Analysis reveals the difficulties in arranging a racially segregated cinematic experience and the related imperfect level of Fascistization of the imperial society, in part because the Fascist empire was short-lived and, especially in Ethiopia, it was constantly threatened by local resistance. However, the article argues that the substantial failure of the Fascistization of film consumption primarily stems from the unsuccessful relationship that Fascism established with pre-existing theatre owners. It also reveals how the transnational nature of film practices de facto inhibited their seamless adaptation to the Fascist’s imperial agenda.
RIASSUNTO
L’articolo proposto analizza la fruizione cinematografica nell’Africa orientale italiana (1936–1941). Esso si colloca all’interno del rinnovato interesse storiografico per gli aspetti sociali e culturali caratterizzanti l’impero del fascismo. Tuttavia, grazie allo studio di fonti archivistiche originali, il lavoro offrirà un’analisi innovativa delle teorie, delle pratiche e delle vicende concernenti l’implementazione degli spettacoli cinematografici nel Corno d’Africa. I principi che ispirarono l’organizzazione sia degli spettacoli itineranti che delle proiezioni nei cinema privati delle città dell’impero saranno interpretati alla luce di un quadro analitico transnazionale e transimperiale: ciò permetterà di valutare l’intervento fascista all’interno della storia della diffusione del cinema nel Corno d’Africa, nonché di comparare questo intervento con esperienze coloniali coeve. Se è innegabile che la breve durate e l’instabilità dell’impero fascista inficiarono l’implementazione di questi progetti, è altrettanto vero che la ricostruzione di queste vicende evidenzierà come il cinema abbia in realtà messo in discussione, più che contribuito a definire, l’ordine gerarchico e razziale della società coloniale desiderato dal fascismo.
PAROLE CHIAVE:
Notes
1. Telegrams between the Italian Ambassador in Ethiopia, Orazio Vinci Gigliucci, and the Foreign Office (20 November 1933; 8 March 1934; 10 November 1934), Archivio Centrale dello Stato (hereafter ACS), group ‘Ministero della Cultura Popolare’ (Minculpop), Box 65, folder ‘Etiopia 1934’, file ‘invii di film in Etiopia’.
2. Matthew Stanard’s work on interwar imperial propaganda has been instrumental in this context. Stanard has explored various practices and tropes which recur across European imperial cultures between the World Wars, among which he mentions: the idea that the empire was a singular and unified entity; the mission civilisatrice; the idea that in the colony lies the fortune and wealth of the metropolis, and the idea that before the arrival of European powers those areas were in terrible and primitive conditions. These beliefs shaped everyday practices like colonial days, literature, plays, and exhibitions; all these elements shaped national colonial cultures.
3. Will Higbee and Song Hwee Lim provide an operational definition of transnational cinema as ‘a means of understanding production, consumption and representation of cultural identity (both individual and collective) in an increasingly interconnected, multicultural and polycentric world’ (Higbee and Lim Citation2010; Ponzanesi and Waller Citation2012).
4. Ciccodicolla had bought the projector following Stévenin’s bankruptcy and excommunication from the Ethiopian clergy, see Italian Foreign Office, I documenti diplomatici italiani (Third series, Second Volume: 1 May 1897–23 June 1898) (Rome 1958), 154–155.
5. He wrote: ‘la cinematografia è arrivata con tutta quella gran ventata di miracoli che la conquista italiana ha portato nell’ultimo paese schiavista del mondo’ [Cinema has arrived together with a wave of miracles the Italian conquest brought to the last pro-slavery country in the world].
6. The Istituto Luce was the state institution that produced propaganda newsreels and documentaries. It was legitimated and set up directly by Mussolini. During the Ethiopian war, Luce’s African Division produced and distributed images, newsreels, and documentaries about the empire both in Italy and in the colonies.
7. ACS, Minculpop, 115, ‘Ufficio Stampa e Propaganda in AOI - Reparto fotocinematografico Luce’, letter n. 11150, 11 May 1936, sent by the president of the Istituto Luce Paulucci di Calboli to the Undersecretary for Press and Propaganda Dino Alfieri; in the same archival position, letter n. 1874/6/7, 4 August 1936, by Girolamo de Bosdari (acting head of the African Propaganda Office) to the Press and Propaganda Office in Rome.
8. ACS, Minculpop, 115, ‘Ufficio Stampa e Propaganda in AOI – Reparto Fotocinematografico Luce’, letter n. 1874/6/7, 4 August 1936.
9. Ibid. (same archival position). On this point, Ruth Ben-Ghiat observes that in other Italian colonies – Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia – local populations ‘had had more exposure to Italian language and to cinema’, and therefore the audience could better follow the storyline (2015, 61).
10. The governorates (Governatorati) were six regional governments composing the Italian East Africa empire: Somalia, Eritrea, Harar, Galla–Sidama, Amhara, Addis Ababa (which became Scioa/Shewa in 1938). The subdivisions were in theory based on ethnic, cultural, and linguistic traits. However, as argued by Giampaolo Calchi Novati (Citation2011, 105), it created arbitrary borders that aimed to weaken any possible form of anti-Italian resistance. The activity of the governorates was supervised by the highest colonial authority, which was the General Governor, who had also the important title of Viceroy but who was, quite peculiarly, put under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Office (which became African Office in April 1937) (Dominioni Citation2008, 178–189; Ghisalberti Citation1996).
11. ACS, Minculpop, 115, ‘Ufficio Stampa e Propaganda in AOI – Reparto fotocinematografico Luce’, record n. 2493, 7 December 1936. This organization is confirmed also in a letter sent by the Viceroy Amedeo d’Aosta to the local governorates in 1939, see Archivio Storico Diplomatico Ministero Affari Esteri (hereafter ASDMAE), Group ‘Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945’, box 1008, folder ‘Nucleo per l’Eritrea dell’Istituto L.U.C.E – Organizzazione Generale – Personale – Materiale’, file ‘Autocinema sonoro Isotta Fraschini n. 26’, letter n. 401333, 31 December 1939.
12. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘Nucleo per l’Eritrea dell’Istituto L.U.C.E – Organizzazione Generale – Personale – Materiale’, ‘Autocinema Sonoro’, request from the Eritrean Governor Giuseppe Daodiace sent in February 1938. Response from Luigi Pignatelli, head of the secretary at African Press and Propaganda Office (document n. 3457), and from Eugenio Sangiovanni, head of the Luce African Division (n. 274, March 1938).
13. This institutional confusion was partly settled only in January 1940, just a few months before the collapse of the Fascist empire during WWII. Between December 1939 and February 1940 an agreement between the Istituto Luce and the General Government of Italian East Africa put Luce’s African Division under the jurisdiction of the General Government, see ACS, Minculpop, 72, 478 ‘Africa Orientale Italiana – propaganda’, documents ‘propaganda cinematografica in AOI’ and ‘schema di convenzione’, December 1939–February 1940 (see also Mancosu Citation2014).
14. ACS, Minculpop, 115, ‘Ufficio Stampa e Propaganda in AOI – Reparto Fotocinematografico Luce’, letter n. 1874/6/7, 4 August 1936 (folio 2, attached to the main document, with technical requirements by De Bosdari to the Press and Propaganda Office).
15. ACS, Minculpop, 115, ‘Ufficio Stampa e Propaganda in AOI – Reparto Fotocinematografico LUCE’, memo n. 1687, 20 July 1936, written by Paulucci di Calboli and addressed to the Press and Propaganda Office.
16. ACS, Minculpop, 115, ‘Ufficio Stampa e Propaganda in AOI – Reparto Fotocinematografico Luce’, letter n. 2493, 7 December 1936, sent by the President of the Istituto Luce Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli to the Colonial Office and to the Press and Propaganda Office.
17. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1012, ‘Comunicati della sezione stampa e propaganda all’ufficio stampa e propaganda AOI’, report n. 995770 about press, radio, and cinematography in the empire by the undersecretary of the Italian African Office (the former Colonial Office) Attilio Teruzzi to the local governorates, 24 September 1938.
18. Some racial norms and regulations were locally implemented in the colonies from 1933, even though they did not become laws of the Italian Kingdom until 1937 (Royal Decrees).
19. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘Nucleo per l’Eritrea dell’Istituto L.U.C.E – Organizzazione generale – Personale – Materiale’, ‘Autocinema Sonoro Isotta Fraschini n. 26’, letter 958009, 7 January 1939, from the undersecretary Teruzzi to the head of the Luce African Division.
20. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘Nucleo per l’Eritrea dell’Istituto L.U.C.E – Organizzazione generale – Personale – Materiale’, sf. ‘Autocinema Sonoro Isotta Fraschini n. 26’, letter n. 4313, 22 April 1938.
21. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘Nucleo per l’Eritrea dell’Istituto L.U.C.E – Organizzazione generale – Personale – Materiale’, ‘varie L.U.C.E’, telegram n. 1279 from Italo Donati (10 April 1939) and reply (author not known). The answer to such a request was negative: the cinema truck would not divert from its pre-established itinerary; moreover, a reel of Luciano Serra was no longer available.
22. Other evidence shows additional cine-trucks (n. 21, n. 23, n. 25) were operating in the Fascist empire, which can be spotted also in two newsreels produced by the Istituto Luce in 1935 (film n. B0681, ‘Nuovo furgone da proiezione cinematografica dell’Istituto LUCE per la propaganda agraria’) and in 1938 (film n. B1253, ‘L’imbarco di tre autocinema dell’Istituto Nazionale Luce per l’Africa Orientale’).
23. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘Nucleo per l’Eritrea dell’Istituto L.U.C.E – Organizzazione generale – Personale – Materiale’, ‘Diario degli spettacoli cinematografici’, document ‘resoconto delle programmazioni dell’autocinema 26 redatto dall’operatore Mario Taglieri e inviato al governatore dell’Eritrea’, 5 May 1939.
24. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘Nucleo per l’Eritrea dell’Istituto L.U.C.E – Organizzazione generale – Personale – Materiale’, ‘Autocinema Sonoro’, telegram 5296 by the local residente in Alomata (general Muratori) to the Governor of Eritrea, 4 May 1938.
25. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘Nucleo per l’Eritrea dell’Istituto L.U.C.E – Organizzazione generale – Personale – Materiale’, ‘Autocinema Sonoro’. The records about the attendance to mobile shows are mainly based on the reports by: commissionership Barbato (Adigrat, telegram n. 5064, 26 April 1938); centurione Turchiaruolo (Enda Jesus, telegram n. 5176, 30 April 1938); general Muratori (Alomatà, telegram n. 1901, 4 May 1938); general Missi (Dessié, telegram n. 1711, 10 May 1938). By cross-referencing the data, the figures show that on average 100 Italians attended to the mobile shows. The figures are far higher for the African audience (on average between 500 and 3000 people).
26. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘Nucleo per l’Eritrea dell’Istituto L.U.C.E – Organizzazione generale – Personale – Materiale’, ‘Autocinema sonoro Isotta Fraschini n. 26’, letter n. 401333, 31 December 1939.
27. Archivio di Stato di Forlì (hereafter ASF), Group ‘Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli Barone’ (GPDCB), box 250, folder ‘Verbali CdA Luce’, memo of the Luce’s administrative board, 7 July 1936. The Ente Nazional Industrie Cinematografiche (E.N.I.C.) was created in 1935 as the state-controlled division controlling production and distribution of films.
28. ASF, GPDCB, 250, ‘Verbali CdA Luce’, memos of Luce’s administrative boards, held on 31 March 1937 and on 7 July 1936.
29. ACS, Minculpop, 115, ‘Ufficio stampa e propaganda in AOI – Reparto fotocinematografico Luce’, telegram n. 449, 23 February 1937, from Catalano Gonzaga (head of the African Press and Propaganda Office) to the Ministry for Press and Propaganda Dino Alfieri. Also in 1939, the activity of Luce was described as ‘merely business-oriented, and limited to film distribution among the film theatres for pecuniary interest’, see ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘Nucleo per l’Eritrea dell’Istituto L.U.C.E – Organizzazione generale – Personale – Materiale, file 223 ‘Istituto Nazionale Luce: Eritrea, organizzazione generale – personale’, handwritten comment by Luigi Pignatelli (head secretary of the office of Eritrea’s Governor) attached to a letter sent by Ernesto Sangiovanni (head of Luce African Division) to Governor Daodiace, June 1938.
30. ACS, Minculpop, 115, ‘Ufficio Stampa e Propaganda in AOI – Reparto Fotocinematografico Luce’, report on the activity of the African Press and Propaganda Office by his chief Catalano Gonzaga, 4 December 1936.
31. ACS, Minculpop; 115, ‘Ufficio Stampa e Propaganda in AOI – Reparto Fotocinematografico Luce’, report of a meeting held on 17 November 1937.
32. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1009, ‘Diario degli spettacoli cinematografici dati in Asmara. Anno 1938’.
33. These figures are uncertain because the data in the sources clashed. Furthermore, the sources I use (touristic guides, journal articles, secondary literature) tend to describe the situation diachronically: they therefore very rarely take into account the evolution (renaming, changing of the intended use) of each theatre throughout the years. Since no State survey about the situation of film consumption in Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia before 1936 is available, sources describing the presence and activity of movie theatres include the above-mentioned: Annuario delle Colonie Italiane (Citation1927), Bertarelli (Citation1929), and Piccioli (2007).
34. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘commissione per lo spettacolo – cinematografi’, ‘disposizioni per le proiezioni dei film’, joint statement by the Gruppo esercenti locali pubblici spettacoli (Association of the exhibitors of public shows) addressed to the governor of Eritrea (no date, presumably between February and March 1938).
35. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘commissione per lo spettacolo – cinematografi’, ‘disposizioni per le proiezioni dei film’, report n. 48028 about movie theatres in the Eritrean Governorship, 7 January 1938.
36. ACS, Group ‘Ministero dell’Africa italiana’ (MAI), box 2050, folder 7.4 ‘Comunicazioni, traffico e turismo. Spettacoli’, file 7.4/5 ‘Spettacoli Harar’, document ‘Censimento sale spettacoli A.O.I.’, 20 January 1940.
37. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘commissione per lo spettacolo – cinematografi’, file ‘disposizioni per le proiezioni dei film’, joint statement by the Gruppo esercenti locali pubblici spettacoli (Association of the exhibitors of public shows) addressed to the governor of Eritrea (no date, presumably February 1938). The exhibitors who signed the document were Fortunato Allegretti, Alberto Capozzi, and Fermo Poltronieri of the Association of the exhibitors of public shows; the Incegneri brothers who owned the Cinema Teatro Asmara; Perseo Meneghetti of the Cinema Umberto; Marino representing the movie theatre Santa Cecilia of the Catholic vicariate; Palumbo, owner of the cinema Dante.
38. For instance, in August 1936 the Colonial Office recommended ‘che si arrivi gradualmente a tenere separate le abitazioni dei nazionali da quelle degli indigeni; che sia evitata ogni familiarità tra le due razze; che i pubblici ritrovi frequentati da bianchi non siano frequentati dagli indigeni’ (the gradual introduction of a clear separation of Italian and African houses; that any kind of mixing between different races be avoided; that public spaces and gatherings for white people not be attended by native people) (Rochat Citation1988, 188–189).
39. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘commissione per lo spettacolo – cinematografi’, file ‘disposizioni per le proiezioni dei film’, document 48028, 7 January 1938.
40. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1004, ‘Cinema Hamasien per indigeni’, file ‘Cinema Hamasien – Barracchia Ugo’, letter n. 1421 (13 November 1938) and telegram n. 765438 from the MAI to the Eritrean Governor Daodiace (12 March 1940), in which he referred to another telegram (n. 9158, November 1939) sent to the African Office by the President of the Istituto Luce Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli.
41. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1004, ‘Cinema Hamasien per indigeni’, file ‘Cinema Hamasien – Barracchia Ugo’, letter n. 9765 from Daodiace to the commander of the ascari troops (22 November 1939); letter n. 9884 from Daodiace to the financial office of Eritrea (24 November 1939).
42. ACS, Minculpop, 115, ‘Ufficio Stampa e Propaganda in AOI – Reparto Fotocinematografico Luce’, letter from Guido Cortese to the national secretary of the P.N.F. Achille Starace, 15 June 1937.
43. ACS, Minculpop, 115, ‘Ufficio Stampa e Propaganda in AOI – Reparto Fotocinematografico Luce’, memo from Catalano Gonzaga to the viceroy Rodolfo Graziani, 17 June 1937.
44. MAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1012, ‘comunicati della sezione stampa e propaganda all’ufficio stampa e propaganda AOI’, report n. 995770, 24 September 1938.
45. ACS, Minculpop, 100, ‘Teatro dell’impero in Addis Abeba’, letter by Carlo Boidi to the Popular Culture Office, 8 July 1939.
46. ACS, Minculpop, 100, ‘Teatro dell’impero in Addis Abeba’, letter from Carlo Boidi to the Popular Culture Office, 8 July 1939; translation: ‘leggende sacre e profane, dalle antiche loro epopee che sono numerose e ricche di sentimento primitivo e di drammaticità elementare’.
47. ACS, Minculpop, 100, ‘Teatro dell’impero in Addis Abeba’, letter from Carlo Boidi to the Secretary of the Ministero della Cultura Popolare Dino Alfieri Alfieri, 8 June1939.
48. ASDMAE, Archivio Eritrea 1880–1945, 1008, ‘commissione per lo spettacolo – cinematografi’, file ‘disposizioni per le proiezioni dei film’, telegram 912, 30 January 1939.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Gianmarco Mancosu
Gianmarco Mancosu is postdoctoral researcher in Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Cagliari. He received his first doctorate in Italian Colonial History at the University of Cagliari (2015) and has successfully defended his second doctoral thesis at the University of Warwick (2020). His research interests deal mostly with Italian colonial history and culture, film production about the Fascist empire and decolonization, the post-colonial presence of Italian communities in Africa, the memories and legacies of colonialism in modern and contemporary Italy. He has published extensively on these topics. He is currently working on a monograph about Fascist film propaganda about the Ethiopian war. He was ‘Luisa Selis’ Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory (School of Advanced Studies – University of London, 2018), working on history and belongings of Sardinian migrant communities in Europe, and Research Assistant of the project ‘The Dialectics of Modernity. Modernism, Modernization, and the Arts Under European Dictatorships’ (University of Manchester, 2018).