Director: Tilde Capomazza (with the collaboration of Annalisa de’ Sivo)
Author: Tilde Capomazza
Country: Italy
Year: 1993
Duration: 50′
Subject: The UDI exhibition in Ferrara recounts, through archival materials, photographs, texts, posters, and issues of Noi Donne, the history of the Italian Women’s Union. The renowned women’s organization of the Italian Communist Party, at the end of the 1980s, embracing the political perspective of the new feminism, transitioned at its congress to women’s autonomy. The politics of rights and economic reforms that had distinguished the UDI from 1943 onward, through the 1960s and 1970s, acquired a different formulation, eventually incorporating ‘starting from oneself’ and ‘the thought of difference’ into the political horizons of its participants.
In this valuable documentary, the director gathers precious historical testimony. Within the exhibition setting, the director films interviews with older women, those belonging to the first UDI organization, and then with younger women, some from the Ferrara feminist movement and openly aligned with the language of feminist practice. These highly interesting testimonies recount an important history of our times, embodied in the personal experiences of the protagonists. The words narrate and distinguish women’s lived experiences from one another; they confront us with the diversity of speaking and seeing the world across two or three generations of women. We encounter very young women visiting the exhibition, unconsciously drawn by the strength of women’s relationships. These women, of different ages and experiences, speak of this and other matters, conveying a local message where history speaks of female subjectivity, comprehensible to all of us. If the history of the UDI has not been indifferent to women’s politics, this documentary enables us to recognize it. Although filmed in 1993, it remains valid today for its spontaneous yet rigorous approach, aimed at constructing and transmitting historical testimony. It is through those who lived this history that, as the opening text states, emotions, memories, and judgments circulate among women; they speak to viewers who are certainly not indifferent collectors of women’s history, but rather active interpreters of social changes and politics. We then realize that a primary place among others is occupied by women’s pleasure in sharing experiences, among women, as the documentary states: without class, race, ethnic, or political affiliations.
Type: Documentary
Format: VHS
Language: Italian
Availability: