Mariangela Palmieri
University of Salerno (Italy)
Basilicata in Transformation: Through the Italian Post-War Documentary
In the 1950s and 1960s Basilicata was represented on several occasions in Italian documentary cinema. This is the time when the documentary, in the form of the short film, was usually shown in cinemas and was produced, as well as by film production companies, by institutions, political parties and industries for various communication purposes. These are the same years in which, during the economic miracle, Basilicata, the emblem of an underdeveloped South, opens up to transformation and modernity, albeit with its own times and ways. The anthropological and social documentary, often critical toward reality, tells the story of rural Lucania, poor and tied to ancient cultural heritage. In fact, at this stage, the region becomes a destination for filmmakers eager to discover the “other Italy”, the unofficial one, Italy untouched by the growth of the miracle, to which it opposed strong cultural resistance. In contrast, institutional and industrial documentaries, expression of voices interested in narrating the great transformation and its values, represent Lucania projected towards modernity, industrialization and development. Government and industry, in fact, in these years have invested in the growth of the South and Basilicata is affected by the benefits of extraordinary intervention and investments for industrial take-off.Taken together, these works, although from different points of view, display in a diachronic form the mutation of landscape, traditions and identity of the region, as well as its contradictions, against the backdrop of an epochal change. These are images of considerable informative value, which have no equal in fictional cinema or in contemporary television. The documentaries made in Basilicata during the economic miracle show us a region in transformation, connecting past, present and future in a dialogue that is not lacking in contrasts and paradoxes.
Mariangela Palmieri is research fellow at the University of Salerno. She deals with contemporary history through audiovisual sources, with particular reference to documentary cinema. She has published essays in collective volumes and scientific journals, and the monograph Profondo Sud. History, documentary and Mezzogiorno (2019).