{"id":148680,"date":"2025-04-11T15:45:33","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T13:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fondazionecsc.it\/call-for-papers-per-cinefollie-influenze-e-interazioni-tra-varieta-e-cinema-convegno-internazionale-promosso-da-csc-cineteca-nazionale-e-airsc-associazione-italiana-per-le-ricerche-di-storia-del\/"},"modified":"2025-04-12T17:27:02","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T15:27:02","slug":"call-for-papers-per-cinefollie-influenze-e-interazioni-tra-varieta-e-cinema-convegno-internazionale-promosso-da-csc-cineteca-nazionale-e-airsc-associazione-italiana-per-le-ricerche-di-storia-del","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fondazionecsc.it\/en\/call-for-papers-per-cinefollie-influenze-e-interazioni-tra-varieta-e-cinema-convegno-internazionale-promosso-da-csc-cineteca-nazionale-e-airsc-associazione-italiana-per-le-ricerche-di-storia-del\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for Papers for “CINEFOLLIE. Influences and Interactions between Variety and Cinema”, International Conference promoted by CSC\u2013Cineteca Nazionale and AIRSC\u2013Italian Association for Research in Film History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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CINEFOLLIE. Influences and Interactions between Variety and Cinema
International Conference promoted by CSC\u2013Cineteca Nazionale and AIRSC\u2013Italian Association for Research in Film History
Rome, CSC\u2013Cineteca Nazionale, 16\u201317 September 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Call for Papers for “CINEFOLLIE. Influences and Interactions between Variety and Cinema”, International Conference promoted by CSC\u2013Cineteca Nazionale and AIRSC\u2013Italian Association for Research in Film History
Rome, CSC\u2013Cineteca Nazionale, 16\u201317 September 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the silent era, cinema has been interacting with variety theatre in a twofold way: on the one hand as a show-within-a-show, on the other by absorbing its artists and \u201cnumbers\u201d. Illusionists, acrobats, jugglers, dancers, comedians and singers are among the many artists coming from the stages of popular theatre who have found a place on the screen, bringing with them the attractions and the school\/practice of the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider Leopoldo Fregoli (Colagreco 2018; Artigas 2020), who included films in his shows, as his transforming acts flowed into the Fregoligraph; but also Ruth St. Denis (Shelton 1981; Di Bernardi 2006) and Mistinguett (Bret 1990), Lina Cavalieri (Mosconi 2018), Karl Valentin (Calandra 2016) and T\u00f3rtola Valencia (Clayton, 2012), to stay within the boundaries of silent cinema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the advent of sound cinema, the phenomenon was destined to grow further: the so-called \u201cavanspettacolo\u201d theatre and the revue offered cinema a seemingly endless inventory of texts, repertoires, sketches, actors, authors, and themes, on which cinema drew heavily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as the Italian context is concerned, in the interwar period great \u201cmattatori\u201d of the stage such as Ettore Petrolini (Mazzei-Orecchia 2018), Sergio T\u00f2fano (Faccioli-Pitassio 2005) and Tot\u00f2 (Anile 2017, Fofi 2017) \u201clanded\u201d on the big screen. The latter also paired with another popular theater performer, Macario, in Il feroce Saladino<\/em> (Mario Bonnard, 1938). Then in the 1940s it was the turn of Za Bum, the innovative company that, between radio, theater and cinema, surprised Italians with its promotional campaigns, even before they entered theaters (Mosconi, 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, the real \u201cexplosion\u201d of this phenomenon took place in the 1950s, when low theater invaded the broad and varied strand of Italian comic and comedy cinema. The format of the so-called \u201cfilm-carosello\u201d emerged in those years indeed (Autelitano, 2011), with its parades of comedians, capable of attracting an audience of modest pretensions. Then it was the turn of the \u201cfilm-barzelletta\u201d (joke movies), such as Ridere! Ridere! Ridere! <\/em>(Edoardo Anton, 1954).  While Camillo Mastrocinque\u2019s Caf\u00e9 Chantant <\/em>(1954) denotes a greater production effort, through color shooting and the presence of Corrado (Corrado Mantoni) introducing sketches of the best numbers from the season\u2019s variety shows. Alongside such filmed \u201cvariety shows\u201d, there were some films that attempted to develop a partly autonomous plot, in the form of a backstage-show film, namely a film that portrayed the staging of a variety or musical show. These were true \u201cfilm revues\u201d: a strand that developed from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, until it died out, when revue theatre was \u201cvampirized\u201d by the new medium of television (Mosconi, 2024). Think of I pompieri di Viggi\u00f9<\/em> (Mario Mattoli, 1949) and Vita da cani<\/em>, by Mario Monicelli and Steno (1950) with Aldo Fabrizi, Gina Lollobrigida and Delia Scala or even Luci del variet\u00e0<\/em> (1950), by Alberto Lattuada and Federico Fellini, with Peppino De Filippo, Carla Del Poggio and Giulietta Masina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cabaret, music hall, vaudeville, burlesque, variety theatre, caf\u00e9-chantant, caf\u00e9-concert<\/em>, \u201cavanspettacolo\u201d and revue theatre: so many are the identities assumed by \u201cthe miscellaneous art theater\u201d, namely that form of low theater that between the second half of the nineteenth century and the 1950s employed entire generations of performers and successfully entertained an equally diverse audience, from the proletarian to the aristocratic and upper-class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1970s and 1980s, the cinematic perspective on variety theatre became bitter and nostalgic at the same time: this is the case, for instance, of Polvere di stelle<\/em> (by Alberto Sordi, 1973), Primo amore<\/em> (by Dino Risi, 1978) and Ginger and Fred<\/em> (Federico Fellini, 1986).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regard to the international context, the variety show took on specific prerogatives, referring to different models and traditions: from the American vaudeville and music hall to the caf\u00e9 chantant, the French variet\u00e9<\/em> and revue<\/em>, to cabaret and the German Kabarett<\/em> revue<\/em>, and a wide range of further European and world experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the broad and varied Anglo-American context, the most successful models ranged from the dance numbers, animal acts and the dramatic sketches absorbed by the American silent film (Mayer 2022), to the singing, contortionism numbers, clowns and specialty dancers that would be celebrated in the early talkies, such as The Broadway Melody<\/em> (Harry Beaumont, 1929); The Hollywood Revue of 1929<\/em> (Charles Reisner, 1929) and King of Jazz<\/em> (John Murray Anderson, P\u00e1l Fej\u00f6s, 1930). These would pave the way for film-musicals, from Busby Berkeley’s \u201cchoreographic films\u201d and pictures starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the 1930s, to those with Gene Kelly in the 1950s and, more recently, to La La Land<\/em> (Damien Chazelle, 2016), to name but a few of the most famous names and titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scholars are invited to propose presentations pertaining to the intersections between the broadly understood \u201cmiscellaneous art theater\u201d and cinema, from its origins to the present day, with interventions that integrate film analysis with cultural context reconstruction, possibly drawing on new acquisitions in the field of documentary research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The covered topics may include (without excluding further proposals):<\/p>\n\n\n\n