Killing in the Name of Love: Representations of Violence against Women in RAI Films - Lecture by Flavia Laviosa

Sunday, March 2, 2014, 7 pm - Dante Alighieri Society of MA - 41 Hampshire St., Cambridge, MA 02139 - (617)876-5160

Since 2007, RAI 3 (Radiotelevisione Italiana) has broadcast Amore criminale (Criminal Love), a weekly series featuring over 100 cases of women who have been killed or severely injured by their husbands or partners. In addition, RAI 1 produced the miniseries Mai per amore (Never for Love). Four films: Troppo amore (Too Much Love) directed by Liliana Cavani; Ragazze in web (Girls in Web) and Helena & Glory by Marco Pontecorvo; and La fuga di Teresa (Theresa's Escape) by Margarethe von Trotta, were presented to raise awareness on the escalating phenomenon of murdered women.

Prof. Laviosa will examine how RAI addresses the cultural and sociological factors causing the sexual, psychological, physical, and domestic violence against women in Italy and then analyze and discuss Cavani's, Pontecorvo's and van Trotta's visually dramatic narratives.

Flavia Laviosa is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Italian Studies and in the Cinema and Media Studies Program at Wellesley College, United States. She is the founder and Editor of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies (Intellect, 2012-). She edited the volume Visions of Struggle in Women's Filmmaking in the Mediterranean (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and was guest editor of the special issue 'Cinematic Journeys of Italian Women Directors' of Studies in European Cinema (8:2, 2011). She is currently working on the book Framed Lives and Screened Deaths: Honour Killings in World Cinema.

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