Between Cities and Mountains: A Look at Contemporary Ecofeminist Cinema in Italy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Starting with a brief overview of the ecofeminist movement and ecocinema, this article provides some theoretical coordinates to contextualise contemporary Italian ecofeminist cinema. Films such as Quatriglio’s Con il fiato sospeso (2013), Mangini and Barbanente’s In viaggio con Cecilia (2013), and Kauber’s In questo mondo (2018) exemplify some features of ecofeminist cinema. They intervene in local realities whose history and geopolitical specificity speaks to global collective efforts. Divorced from an anthropomorphic impetus, their common goal is both raising consciousness about social, political, and environmental issues and suggesting new forms of respect for all human and nonhuman beings. They display the feminist notion of ‘the relational approach’ and privilege Slow Cinema’s techniques. They attempt to blur boundaries between genders and genres, thus attuning viewers to the subtle ways in which binary oppositions –humans–nonhumans, men–women, nature–culture, North–South, wealth–poverty, happiness–unhappiness – continue to work at the core of patriarchy and capitalism.