Rethinking the Cinematic Cold War

Historical consensus increasingly views the Cold War period as a multifaceted conflict which extended beyond the borders of the USSR and USA, encompassing both cultural and diplomatic history. Debate remains, however, about how best to balance the Cold War as a cultural event with the existence of Cold War culture. Rethinking the Cinematic Cold War provides a fresh reassessment of this period, highlighting how the convergence of geopolitical interests, cultural production and exchange, and technological and media history shaped a unique epoch. Consequently, this volume seeks to diagnose the role cinema played in expanding the ideological outlook of artists, audiences, and policymakers.

Stefano Pisu is Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Cagliari. Previously an International Fellow at Oxford University’s Research Center in the Humanities, his work considers the history of international cultural relations through cinema. His publications include Il XX secolo sul red carpet. Politica, economia e cultura nei festival internazionali del cinema, 1932-1976 (Franco Angeli, 2016) and La cortina di celluloide. Il cinema italo-sovietico nella Guerra Fredda (Mimesis, 2019).

Francesco Pitassio is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Udine, specializing in film acting and stardom and Italian and Central-Eastern European film history. Formerly the Italian Principal Investigator for the EU-HERA project, VICTOR-E: Visual Culture of Trauma, Obliteration, and Reconstruction in Post-WW II Europe from 2019 to 2022, his work includes Attore/Divo(Il Castoro, 2003), and Neorealist Film Culture (Amsterdam University Press, 2019). He edited, with Dorota Ostrowska and Zsuzsanna Varga, Popular Cinemas in East Central Europe. Film Cultures and Histories(I.B. Tauris, 2017).

Maurizio Zinni is Associate Professor of Contemporary History at Sapienza University in Rome. A member of the editorial board of Mondo contemporaneo and Cinema e storia, his research primarily focuses on modern icons as sources for contemporary history and on the role of the media as agents of history in the construction of modern identity. His writings include Fascisti di celluloide (Marsilio, 2010), which was the winner of the SISSCO First Work award, and Visioni d’Africa(Donzelli, 2023).