2026 Edition

2026 PROGRAM AND ACTIVITIES

This intensive four-day program is an immersive experience that offers a blend of lectures, scholarly conversations with an international faculty, meetings with the professionals of the cultural industry, and visits to local institutions; the full schedule, which includes details about the various locations where the school will take place, can be downloaded from this page.

Lectures and seminars

• Course Presentation: How to Study the Mediations of Italy
  Luca Barra, Elisa Farinacci (Università di Bologna)

• What Do Men See When They Watch Men? Representation and Reception in Maschi veri
  Nicoletta Marini Maio (Dickinson College) and Romana Andò (Sapienza Università di Roma) 
• The “Commerce of National Dishonor”? Exporting Post-War Italian Cinema
  Charles L. Leavitt IV (University of Notre Dame)
• Italian Silent Films Go West: “dal vero”, Cowgirls, and the Italian American Movie Theater
  Paola Bonifazio (University of Texas  - Austin)

• Localising Representational Justice:Netflix’s Zero (2021) and Audience Responses
  Alessio Baldini (University of Leeds) 

• Streaming the Seventies: Italian Prestige Drama and the Platformed Past
  Giancarlo Lombardi (City University of New York)

• Film Diplomacy: A Conceptual Framework for Cold War Governance
  Jülide Etem (University of Virginia)

• How to build a Global Film Festival: Il cinema ritrovato
  Guy Borlée (Cineteca di Bologna)

• “IT’s Your Vibe”: Celebrating Italianness in the 2026 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony
  Emiliano Rossi (Università degli studi di Padova)
• Remaking The Leopard as a Global Television series
  Dana Renga (Ohio State University) and Luca Barra (Università di Bologna)

• People of the Miracle: Dario Fo, Franca Rame and Italian Television
  Matteo Marinello (Università di Bologna)

Guided tours, special events, and social activities

• Opening aperitivo and goodbye coffee break
• Italianness and the Eurovision Song Contest. On Stage and Behind the Scenes
  Conversation with Eddy Anselmi, TV author
• Contemporary Italian Youth Television (Palgrave) and Giallo! Going through the History of Italian Television Crime Drama (Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies, Intellect) 
  Book presentations
• Viva Varda! Il cinema è donna
  Guided tour of the exhibition at Cineteca/Modernissimo
• La regle du jeu
  Film Screening at Cinema Modernissimo

Student presentations

A full schedule of the poster presentations planned for the 2026 edition is available as a downloadable document.