The process of centralizing the film industry in Italy, begun by the proponents of the Risorgimento almost from the time of that industry’s creation and expedited by the Fascists, virtually snuffed out the embryonic film companies that had sprung up in places like Naples and Sicily. That and the advent of sound film (along with its vastly increased costs) insured that only films produced in the movie studios of Rome or Northern Italy would ever see the light of day.

The cultural hegemony of the Padanians succeeded in relegating the local cultures of Southern Italy into second, no, third class status! This was due to the fact Northerners regarded the art, music, languages and cuisines of their newly acquired peons in the south as being inferior to even that of non-Italian Europeans.