Italian Experimental Cinema and Moving-Image Art

Event Details

Mon, March 30, 2026

18:00 – 19:30

VILLA SASSETTI
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50139 Florence, Italy

Book Presentation

Rossella Catanese, NYU Florence and Jennifer Malvezzi, Independent Researcher

Join us for a riveting discussion of one of the first English-language inquiries into Italian experimental and avant-garde cinema. Moving beyond the familiar landscapes of well-known Neorealism or Fellini, this event—guided by two of the book’s co-editors—delves into a century of radical cinematic practice, to map the country’s hidden history of underground filmmaking. We’ll explore how Italian artists worked outside industrial conventions, forging deep connections with painting, performance, and the broader underground movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. Enjoy this opportunity to discover the innovators who redefined the moving image beyond the mainstream canon!

Featured Biographies

Rossella Catanese

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF TUSCIA (VT); NYU FLORENCE LECTURER

Rossella Catanese teaches ‘History of Italian Cinema’ at NYU Florence and is an associate professor at the University of Tuscia (Viterbo). Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Udine and at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca. Her books include the collections Futurist Cinema. Studies on Italian Avant-garde Film (2017) and From Sensation to Synaesthesia in Film and New Media, co-edited with Francesca Scotto Lavina and Valentina Valente (2019). She also received the Sixth Marcel Duchamp Research Grant from the Staatliches Museum Schwerin (Germany) in 2023.

Jennifer Malvezzi

INDEPENDENT RESEARCHER

Jennifer Malvezzi is a researcher in Media Studies, focusing on the relationship between the moving image and other arts, including experimental film and video. She has written essays for journals and volumes and co-curated several exhibitions. She is the author of the monograph Remedi-action. Dieci anni di videoteatro italiano (2015), Taroni Cividin. Performance, Video, Expanded Cinema 1977-1984 (2023), edited with Flora Pitrolo, and Expanded Cultures. Storie, critiche e pratiche del cinema espanso in Italia (2025). She collaborates with the Home Movies Archive for the “Art & Experimental Film” project, dedicated to films by Italian artists and filmmakers. Additionally, she is a member of the scientific board of the Umberto Bignardi Archive, and series editor of ExSeries, a multilingual book series devoted to experimental cinema.