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We want cinema. Sguardi di donne nel cinema italiano, edited by Laura Buffoni, Venice, Marsilio Editori, 2018, 295 pp., €25.00 (paperback), ISBN 978-88-317-0846-3
This collection of essays, interviews, and documents reflects on past and current contributions of women to Italian cinema, while denouncing the film industry's gender gap and biases. It is a ‘militant book’ written by women about women, as Laura Buffoni clearly and bluntly states in her introduction, and a call for action through the voices and gazes of some of Italian cinema's female professionals. Resulting from the eponymous 54th Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema in Pesaro, Italy, which was dedicated to Italian female filmmakers, it provides a window into cinema made by women, while drawing attention to their multifaceted work in their roles as directors, screenwriters, actresses, producers, film editors, set and costume designers, et cetera.
In her introduction, Buffoni reflects on the need to abandon a binary mode of thinking with its numerous clichés and stereotypes that may result in the passive acceptance by women of a victim-like role in a film industry dominated by white men. While denouncing the normalisation of gender inequality and the asymmetrical distribution of power within and outside the film industry as a manifestation of the dominant patriarchal social system, Buffoni acknowledges the potential for transformation. The need for change is the leitmotiv that guides the numerous contributions to this volume and allows for multiple voices to unite, like the instruments of an orchestra, into one strong chorus for action.
The volume is...