Italy's first female film director, Elvira Notari, who made 60 feature films depicting the gritty squalor of early 20th-century Naples, is being rediscovered in a new documentary. Most of her work was lost to fascist censorship, and she died in obscurity, but 'Elvira Notari: Beyond Silence' aims to give her a voice again.
Notari's 1922 melodrama 'È piccerella' exemplifies her raw style, opening with documentary shots of a Neapolitan festival described as an 'orgiastic pandemonium.' The film follows a manipulative woman and her besotted suitor, showing poverty and deviance that the fascist regime sought to suppress. 'The fascists didn't want to see films about Neapolitan society in which a son takes money from his mother,' says scholar Giuliana Bruno.
Only three of Notari's features survive, along with fragments of others, due to censorship. Her work influenced later Italian-American filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, with her street festival scenes prefiguring those in 'The Godfather' and 'Goodfellas.'
The documentary, directed by Valerio Ciriaci, explores Notari's career by featuring modern artisans inspired by her work, as she left no personal accounts. Producer Antonella Di Nocera notes the 'carnality and sensuality' of Notari's films, which feel contemporary. A national committee has been established to celebrate the 150th anniversary of her birth.
