The Origins of Cinema: From the First Experiments to the Silent Era

How cinema was born, and how it became what we know today: from nineteenth-century experiments to the first public screenings, up to a language that within a few years would learn to tell stories, build worlds, and move emotions — still without a single word. A journey that also seeks out lesser-known films, to restore the richness of those first years.

The Birth of the Film Industries

How cinema, once a fairground curiosity, became a real business — in several places, almost at the same time: the divas who built, and sometimes carried with them, the fate of an entire industry. From Cinecittà in Italy to Hollywood, all the way to the Shanghai of Ruan Lingyu, the most important star of Chinese silent cinema. A lesson on who turned cinema into a business, starting from who turned it into spectacle.

Hollywood's Golden Age

A dream factory running at full capacity: a system in which every studio controlled production, distribution and exhibition, and every film was built on a tested formula — contracted stars, recognizable genres, a craft made of precision as much as vision. The myth of those years lives on through its protagonists, great masters like Ford, Hawks and Hitchcock.

Neorealism and Nouvelle Vague

A session dedicated to two movements that, fifteen years apart, break the same rule in two different ways: cinema built in the studio, with scripts written at a desk and professional actors. Italian Neorealism shoots its films in real streets, with ordinary people instead of actors, telling the everyday life of the postwar years. The French Nouvelle Vague, by contrast, emerges from a group of young critics, raised watching those very films, who decide to break the same rules — declaring it openly in their critical writings, even before making their own films.

China, Japan, India and Iran: Eastern Cinema and Its Encounter with the West

A session dedicated to the international circulation of Asian cinema and to the ways in which Eastern and Western cinema observed, influenced and misread one another throughout the twentieth century. In 1951 Kurosawa's Rashomon won in Venice, and the West discovered a cinema that already had its own industries, languages and traditions — from Japan to China, by way of India and Iran.

From Antonioni to Bertolucci, from Fellini to Bergman: the Masters of Modern Cinema

A lesson dedicated to the great masters who transformed cinema and the way we look at the world: from Visconti to Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini and Bertolucci, all the way to Bergman. A journey through images, stories and languages that shaped the emergence of modern cinema.

Latin America on Screen: Industries, Filmmakers and Revolutions

A journey through Latin American cinema, from the major Mexican and Argentine film industries of the 1930s and 1940s to the political cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. An overview of the filmmakers and films that transformed cinema into a tool for storytelling, critique, and political imagination, from Buñuel to Glauber Rocha and Jodorowsky.

From Fassbinder to Tarkovsky: Two Europes

Western and Soviet Europe, between the 1960s and 1970s: two systems, two ideas of cinema, two ways of telling the story of a continent divided by the Cold War. From the New German Cinema of Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders to Tarkovsky’s cinema, a lesson on the relationship between cinema, history, and politics.

New Hollywood and the blockbuster

Between the 1960s and 1970s, Hollywood changes its face: the crisis of the studio system opens up space for a new generation of filmmakers, from Coppola to Scorsese, bringing auteur-driven approaches and ambitions to American cinema. Then Jaws and Star Wars usher in a new era—the blockbuster—destined to transform the relationship between cinema, industry, and audiences forever.

Postmodern Cinema: From Lynch to Tarantino

A lesson dedicated to postmodern cinema and its rewriting of genres, images, and film history. From David Lynch to Quentin Tarantino, a journey through a new idea of authorship, shaped by quotation, fragmentation, and the blending of cinematic languages.

China and South Korea: New Centers of Cinema

A lesson dedicated to the emergence of China and South Korea as new centers of international cinema from the late twentieth century into the new millennium. From the Chinese Fifth Generation to the cinema of Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook, an overview of industries, filmmakers, and languages that have reshaped the geography of contemporary cinema.

Streaming, Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence: Contemporary Cinema

A lesson dedicated to the transformations of contemporary cinema: from theaters to streaming platforms, from new models of distribution to the growing role of algorithms. Today, artificial intelligence opens a new chapter, challenging the relationship between authorship, machines, industry, and audiences.