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Podcast: New Books in Italian Studies
Episode: Elena Past, "Italian Ecocinema: Beyond the Human" (Indiana UP, 2019)
Description: Elena Past’s recently published Italian Ecocinema: Beyond the Human (Indiana University Press, 2019) studies a complex of issues surrounding on-location films made in Italy and the way their production leaves lasting, material traces on the environment. The films span a number of regions and ecospheres within Italy: the Adriatic, site of the petrochemical wastelands in Antonioni’s Red Desert; the Neapolitan hinterland’s toxic waste dump in Garrone’s Gommora; the plight of an outlander goatherd in the Italian alps in Diritti’s The Wind Blows Round; the Calabrian mountains in Frammartino’s Le quattro volte; and the volcanoes of the Aeoli...