This thesis aims to answer the question: is there an ideology conditioning European A festivals’ awarding and representation of Italian cinema in the years 2000-2017 and, if so, how does it function? The project presents a systematic analysis of the ideological underpinnings of such awarding and representation, examining a corpus of Italian films that have won Best Picture at a European A festival in the years 2000-2017. Its methodology is grounded in Slavoj Žižek’s theory of ideology, which it maps on to three aspects of European A festivals: the A circuit apparatus – its histories, organisational structures and practices; festival paratexts – film synopses in festivals’ official programmes; and film texts – aspects of films that confound their institutional representation. Comparing each level, the thesis identifies and critiques the explicit ways in which European A festivals represent Italian cinema, and the implicit laws that govern such representation.
The Introduction discusses the importance of research into ideology in relation to both film festivals and Italian cinema, and presents the thesis’s methodology. Subsequent chapters analyse: the auteur as a sinthome of artistic freedom in Cannes’ representation of The Son’s Room (La stanza del figlio, Nanni Moretti, 2001); the social other and fantasy of the sexual relationship in Karlovy Vary’s representation of Facing Window (La finestra di fronte, Ferzan Özpetek, 2003); the masculinity of the artist in Cannes’ and Tallinn’s representations of The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza, Paolo Sorrentino, 2013); brutal humanism in the Berlinale’s representation of Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare, Gianfranco Rosi, 2016); and capitalist orientalism in Cannes’s representation of Gomorrah (Gomorra, Matteo Garrone, 2008). I conclude that capital constitutes the primary unwritten law that generates and regulates European A festivals’ ideological representation of Italian cinema. In so doing, I aim to highlight and challenge the ideological coordinates which govern these institutions.
