In Rom zuhause. Oesterreicher im italienischen Film der 1930er Jahre

This paper deals with a number of Italian and Austrian films produced around the mid-1930s as a result of the cinematic cooperation that developed between Rome and Vienna at the time. The paper’s goal is to investigate a complex chapter in the history of Italian and Austrian film which has yet received little attention. The Austro-Italian cooperation in the field of film, which developed against the backdrop of the political alliance between Fascist Italy and Austria’s so-called Corporate State, involved some of the biggest names in the Italian and Austrian cinema of the time, including Italian directors Carmine Gallone, Augusto Genina and Goffredo Alessandrini. In particular, the paper will consider the Italian film "Casta Diva" (1935) and its debt to one of the most famous Austrian productions of the 1930s, Willi Forst’s film "Leise flehen meine Lieder" (1933), "Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (1935), "Una donna tra due mondi" (1936), "Opernring" (1936), and "Blumen aus Nizza" (1936). By investigating them, this paper aims to shed light on a crucial period in the history of Italian and Austrian cinema.