Before the Credits: Feminist genealogies and the making of Italian women film pioneers, 1914-22

About this event Following Italian unification, a cohort of self-taught professional women writers and naturalistic stage performers born in the 1850s and 1860s emerged. Many became active during the peak of the Italian film industry (1914-22) as screenwriters, directors, producers and performers, when their (conservative) views on feminism had evolved. This half-day event brings together film, literary and feminist scholars and practitioners to address their influences on a later generation of women film pioneers through presentations, a roundtable, and a screening of a silent film ‘written’ by women and considers the following key questions: Were a cohort of Italian women writers and performers from an earlier generation symbolic and material precursors to the women film pioneers of the