The history of Italian movies: The first pioneer movies
The history of Italian cinema began a few months after the first public presentation by the Lumiere brothers, on December 28th 1895 in Paris; after WWII the Italian cinema will become one of the most influential and prized worldwide. This new art was brought to Italy by the Lumieres during 1896. In March the first movies arrived in Rome, then in Milan, in Naples in April, in June in Livorno and in August in Bergamo, Ravenna and Bologna. In Pisa, the oldest and still operating Italian movie theatre, The Cinema Lumiere, was built in 1899. The first pioneer movies (1896-1902)
The first Italian movies were documentaries, filmed in a few seconds in which those fierce pioneers (first and foremost a former cartographer of the Military Institute in Florence, none less inventor, camera operator and director, Filoteo Alberini) would record facts and people of their times, including royals and popes, with a simple crank-operated camera. The first film of which we know the title, from 1896 and filmed by Alberini, has been lost; it showed the King and Queen of Florence. The first film that has lasted until today and still viewable is about Pope Leo XIII going to pray in the Vatican gardens and he uses the camera to perform the first filmed blessing by a Pope, the film is exactly 2 minutes long.
The first Italian movie ever made: La Presa di Roma, released on September 18th 1905 and directed by Filoteo Alberini.
The movie describes the last moments of Rome in the hands of the Pope, divided from the rest of Italy, as it was in 1870. In the opening scene, blindfolded General Carchidio is escorted from Ponte Milvio to General Kanzler of the Papal Army. Carchidio issues an ultimatum to surrender to Kanzler which is refused, and a breach in the city walls is stormed by troops (la breccia di Porta Pia).
The film recorded a crucial moment in the country's recent history: the capture of Rome by the newly-formed Italian army and the election of the city as the country's capital. It was produced with the co-operation of the country's Ministry of War and its goal was to strenghten the feeling of "Italianity" among the populations, putting in a bad light the role of the catholicism during the unification.
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