Article by Alice Ferro

Translated by Mirko Giumentaro

Italia, il fuoco e la cenere is a poetic and oneiric journey through the divas, ghosts, lights, and shadows of Italian silent cinema. It explores its most material essence, it brings its lantern closer to the flesh, the bodies, the bare shoulders in the half-light, the penetrating gazes, the feverish convulsions of the divas. The erotic component is central: cinema made the prudes tremble, in the darkened rooms it allowed women and men to blend. The cinematic exploration becomes a historical exploration and paints the reality of a country in constant transformation, from the pompous and resplendent scenes to the decadence and abyss of fascism that are inexorably approaching.