Italian Cinema Forum 2026, presented by Dr Mark NichollsWORKSHOP # 1
BELLISSIMA (LUCHINO VISCONTI, 1951)
Thursday 30 April 2026, 6.30-8pm.
CO.AS.IT., 199 Faraday St, Carlton.
Free event. Registration essential here: https://www.coasit.com.au/icf-1-2026
A collaboration between three giants of the golden age of Italian cinema, star Anna Magnani, screenwriter Suso Cecchi d’Amico and director Luchino Visconti, Bellissima places its focus on the industry’s consumer. A Roman woman (Magnani), who spends her life making ends meet, thrusts her daughter into the limelight via a mass child audition conducted in the hubbub of Cinecittà. Not even the cynical manipulations of a studio loafer, played by Walter Chiari, stop her in pursuit of stardom for her daughter and in her own performance of the role of a lifetime. Bellissima captures the comic, grasping and highly destructive aspects of the commercial film industry’s reciprocal relation with its highly willing and paying audience.
Selected clips from the movie will be shown during the forum as a basis for group discussion. For a more engaging conversation, we encourage you to watch the full movie beforehand.
ITALIAN CINEMA FORUM
Following the successful classic and contemporary Italian cinema workshops chaired by Mark Nicholls at CO.AS.IT. (2019-2026), we continue the discussion with new instalments for 2026. Join us for this year’s forum. Our aim – as always – is to stimulate you to watch these films and television programs, again or for the first time, and to bring your ideas and insights to our always lively discussion.
This year we begin with a series of discussions based on three films steeped in the creativity and chaos of the Italian film industry of the 1950s and early 1960s: Bellissima (Beautiful), La signora senza camelie (The Lady without Camelias) and 8 ½.
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Dr Mark Nicholls is Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne, where he has taught film since 1993. Mark has worked as a film journalist for ABC Radio and The Age, and has a list of over twenty stage credits as a playwright, performer, producer, and director.
Image: Anna Magnani in Bellissima (Luchino Visconti, 1951) (public domain).
Event Venue
189-199 Faraday Street, Carlton, VIC, Australia, Victoria 3053, 189 Faraday St, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia, Melbourne
Tickets
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