At the Crossroads of Identity: The Migration Cinema of the Triveneto

Public Deposited
Analytics

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
Request Version for Screen Reader
Last Modified
  • March 20, 2019
Creator
  • Dal Pra, Daniela
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Romance Studies
Abstract
  • The study analyzes how the films Occidente and La lingua del santo (2000), La giusta distanza and Riparo (2007), Cose dell’altro mondo and Io sono Li (2011), La prima neve (2013) and Piccola Patria (2014) reproduce the conditions in which immigrant and Italian native identities are negotiated, perceived, and constructed in the Nordest culture. Each film engages a complex structuring of identity and reproduces the “reality” of the space between self / other in the receiving country. This space is the Triveneto region of Italy, a space which is uniquely center and periphery, local and global, rural and urban. The construction of identity echoes this space: cinematic native and migrant identities are multifarious and oscillate between old constructions of national identity and the need to see identity as fluid. The space of the Triveneto is central to the experience of natives and immigrants. A disconnection with the land is a common theme among the films, as exemplified by devastating social effects in Piccola Patria, Occidente, La lingua del santo, Riparo and La giusta distanza. By contrast, La prima neve suggests that integration is possible when immigrant and native turn to the land and “root” identity. These films imply that material interests are interwoven with divisive rhetoric, and suggest that the ideologies of discrimination are rooted in economic interests. The films offer no answers; several of the films end abruptly, leaving the drama open-ended, and in this way mirroring reality.
Date of publication
Keyword
DOI
Resource type
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Chambless, Amy
  • Amago, Samuel
  • Westphal, Bertrand
  • Luisetti, Federico
  • Rao, Ennio
Degree
  • Doctor of Philosophy
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Graduation year
  • 2017
Language

Relations

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details DalPra_unc_0153D_17424.pdf March 15, 2018 Public Download