[Commlist] call for paper "La valle dell'Eden" #39

CALL FOR PAPERS# 39


July-December 2021



Monographic issue


/Studying Italian movie scripts: analysis, perspectives, methods /



Edited by

Giaime Alonge, Giacomo Manzoli, Andrea Minuz, Federica Villa





For a long time, screenwriting has been largely ignored by film 
scholars, in Italy as well as in other countries. Film Studies have been 
– and partially still are – dominated by an auteur-centered approach, 
where the only relevant figure of the cast & credits is the director. 
But in the seventies, thanks to seminal books such as Pauline Kael’s 
/The Citizen Kane Book/ (1974) – recently “rediscovered” because of 
David Fincher’s /Mank/ (2020) – and Richard Corliss’ /Talking Pictures: 
Screenwriters in the American Cinema/ (1974), things started to change. 
In Italy, the widespread influence of the /politiques des auteurs/ had 
joined forces with the Rossellinian-Fellinian distrust – not to say 
contempt – toward the screenplay and the professional figure of the 
screenwriter. It is not a chance that, in Italy, when research in this 
area finally started, it avoided directly addressing the Italian 
screenwriters. The first important Italian scholarly books and essays 
were devoted to screenwriting in general (Giuliana Muscio’s anthology 
/Scrivere il film/, 1981), or to classical Hollywood screenwriters 
(Guido Fink’s essay on Samson Raphaelson, 1994). In the last twenty 
years, a new generation of film scholars has produced a series of 
stimulating, well researched books and essays on Italian screenwriting 
and screenwriters, from the silent years to the present (among others, 
see: Federica Villa, 2002 and 2010; Silvio Alovisio, 2005; Maria Pia 
Comand, 2006; David Bruni, 2011). Today, Italy has a significant 
production of studies on screenwriting in the Italian cinema. But of 
course there are still many unaddressed questions. For example, there is 
no systematic study, based on archival research, devoted to the scripts 
of the “commedia all’italiana”, a genre where writing plays a very 
relevant role. There are no studies on the big Italian directors 
conducted through the perspective of their collaboration with a 
screenwriter (i.e. Luchino Visconti and Suso Cecchi D’Amico).

This new monographic issue of /La Valle dell’Eden/ wants to map this 
vast territory, and try to locate still unexplored areas. The curators 
are particularly interested in essays focused on:

  * Theoretical and methodological issues concerning the history of the
    studies devoted to Italian screenplays and screenwriters, inside and
    outside the academia, included screenwriting manuals.
  * Archival research on a single screenplay, investigated in its
    various stages, from story to shooting script.
  * Adaptations, contacts and relations between screenwriting and other
    media and art forms, both “low” and “high”, such as literature,
    television, radio, comics, “fotoromanzi”.
  * The screenplay as a text to publish, and the relationship between
    screenwriting and the publishing industry.
  * Representation and auto-representation of the screenwriter, both in
    the film community and in the public discourse.
  * The screenplay as production project, as blueprint in the context of
    the fund rising process.
  * The role of screenplays and screenwriters in film festival and
    screenwriting contests, such as Premio Solinas, and the function of
    screenwriter organizations, such as the Writers’ Guild Italia.


This monographic issue is mainly devoted to cinema, from the silent era 
to the present. Proposals concerning solely contemporary TV series will 
not be taken into consideration.




*Submissions and deadlines*

Authors need to submit their proposals (500-word abstract) and bio 
to one of the curators ((giaime.alonge /at/ unito.it) 
<mailto:(giaime.alonge /at/ unito.it)>; (giacomo.manzoli /at/ unibo.it) 
<mailto:(giacomo.manzoli /at/ unibo.it)>; (andrea.minuz /at/ uniroma1.it) 
<mailto:(andrea.minuz /at/ uniroma1.it)>; (federica.villa /at/ unipv.it) 
<mailto:(federica.villa /at/ unipv.it)>), as well to the journal’s 
editorial staff ((eden /at/ unito.it) <mailto:(eden /at/ unito.it)>) by March 31, 
2021. The deadline for full articles (max. 5.000 words) is September 1, 
2021. No payment of Article Processing Charges is required.



/La Valle dell'Eden///East of Eden/ is a film and media studies 
journal, founded in 1999 and published by the University of Torino, 
in collaboration with the Universities of Pavia and Genova. The 
journal uses an open review system, in order to foster a lively and 
fruitful discussion among authors and reviewers, thus promoting 
frankness and cooperation and avoiding the stiff rituals of traditional 
peer-review.


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