“Il centro del cinema mondiale”: La romanitas del settore produttivo tra istanze di decentramento e internazionalizzazione

This contribution looks at trade discourses surrounding the post-war modernisation of Italy’s filming infrastructure and technology and puts them in dialogue with the centralisation and internationalisation of filmmaking activities in Rome between the 1940s and the 1960s. It examines the ways in which leading sectoral publications, such as Araldo dello Spettacolo, Cinemundus, and Cinespettacolo, understood Rome’s exponential film-industrial growth and responded to decentralising plans that aimed to create competitive film production hubs in other regions of Italy capable of attracting domestic and foreign capitals. By highlighting elements of continuity with the institutional policies introduced in Italy before and after World War Two, the article argues that the «Romano-centrism» of Italy’s film production sector, an ideologically-fuelled programme initiated by the Fascist regime in the late 1920s, was strengthened after the end of the war, enabling the city to attract unprecedented foreign investments and to achieve renewed prominence in the international film and media landscape.