Italian EcoCinema Earth Ecologies and Cinema: The Anthro/Bio/Geo/Morphic Machine

Catalog description

Starting from the recognition that human activity has indelibly altered the planet on a scale of geological epoch, constituting an existential crisis for all life forms, this course explores the theory and practice of cinema as artistic endeavor immersed in cultural discourse, human creativity, fossil fueled technology and its material carbon footprint. Contemporary Italian films will be addressed in the frame of eco criticism and feminism, sound ecology and affect theory. Through the work of major filmmakers (Michelangelo Antonioni, Matteo Garrone, Alice Rohrwacher) and transnational productions (the latest Disney Pixar’s Luca directed by Enrico Casarosa) we will query the crucial (direct and indirect) agency of filmmaking to create, critique, alter and foster imaginaries of new/old ways to inhabit the earth in the twenty-first century.