Istituto Nazionale Luce: A National Company with an International Reach

Pierluigi Erbaggio Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader, ed. Giorgio Bertellini (London: John Libbey, 2013), 221-231

Istituto Nazionale Luce: A National Company with an International Reach

The Istituto Nazionale L.U.C.E. (L’Unione Cinematografica Educativa; Educational Film

Union, hereafter referred to as Luce), was one of the main instruments of Fascist propaganda, but

it also represented a unique institutional agent of modernization in post-World War I Italian

cinema. Traditional accounts of Luce’s first years focus on the allegedly direct involvement of

Benito Mussolini in its creation between 1924 and 1925 and mention how his love for cinema

propelled him to watch (and censor) every new Italian film production. Additionally, scholars

point to the decree no. 1000 (April 1926), which made the exhibition of Luce productions in all

Italian movie theaters compulsory, as further indication of the Institute’s central role in Fascist

propaganda.1 A number of scholars consider the history of Luce from a perspective that

foregrounds and privileges its fascist affiliation. These include Gian Piero Brunetta, Philip V.

Cannistraro, Mino Argentieri, Massimo Cardillo, Giampaolo Bernagozzi, James Hay, Ernesto G.

Laura, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Stefano Luconi, Guido Tintori, and Marco Bertozzi.2 What film scholars

have attempted less often is an institutional assessment of Luce in the context of Italian silent

film culture, particularly in terms of its nonfiction production. Such examination reveals

commercial preoccupations and attests to a complexity that makes the Luce more than a mere

fascist propaganda tool.

By making use of primary archival sources, in this essay I will briefly outline the

circumstances of the foundation of Luce, focusing on the role of two of the first Luce directors,

Luciano de Feo and Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli, and on the early position of Luce in the

context of the Italian silent film industry. Additionally, I will explore Luce’s nonfiction

production with special attention to documentaries and newsreels, including the institutional and

aesthetic differences between the two, from the early 1920s until the end of the silent

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Cinegiornale series in 1932. Although documentaries and newsreels occupied a prominent

position in the company’s catalogue, Luce also produced fictional films and, beginning in 1927,

developed a photographic service that led to the creation of the Archivio Fotografico Nazionale

(National Photographic Archive) in 1928.3 Furthermore, I will discuss the role played by Luce in

Italian film history, in terms of technological and logistical demands, from the development and

organization of itinerant film theaters to the film industry’s transition to synchronized sound.

With an eye outside of Italy, namely on the international field of newsreel production, I will also

explore the dense, yet rarely studied relationships and exchanges between Luce and European

and US newsreels companies.

Early Steps: Luciano De Feo and Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli

Until World War I several companies, mostly foreign at first, produced nonfiction films

in Italy.4 From 1896, the Lumière operators and later those of the American Mutoscope and

Biograph Company, traveled throughout the peninsula to both shoot and screen their vedute

(views): short single-shot films of 15-17 meters showing urban and natural landscapes, parades,

ceremonies, and sporting events. During the first decade of the 1900s, the so-called “dal vero”

(from real life) productions developed from these short films, which Tom Gunning described as

the “Ürform of early nonfiction film”.5 The availability of longer film magazines (from 100 to

200 meters) and the work of both independent operators (Filoteo Alberini, Italo Pacchioni, and

Rodolfo Remondini) and the first Italian film companies (Alberini & Santoni in Rome, 1905;

Ambrosio & C. in Turin, 1906; Società Italiana del Cinematofono in Genoa, 1906) permitted the

transition from those early views to the first Italian “dal vero” productions. During this period,

and then especially in the early 1910s, these and other Italian film companies produced a variety

of non-fiction films, beginning with those of obvious tourist interest devoted to known Italian

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landscapes and cities and organized, for instance, in such series as Bellezze italiche [Italian

Beauties, 1912]. The catastrophic genre also abounded with films such as Il terribile terremoto di

Calabria e Sicilia (The terrible Earthquake in Calabria and Sicily, Croce & C., 1909) that

showed the terrible effects of the 1909 cataclysm in Southern Italy. A similar illustrating goal

animated such travelogues as Vittorio Sella’s Sul tetto del mondo [On Top of the World, 1910]

or Roberto Omegna’s Caccia al leopardo (Leopard Hunting in Abyssinia, 1909), which featured

adventurous expeditions or exotic places. For the Ambrosio film company, Omegna later became

a recognized master of another genre of nonfiction: the scientific-medical film, exemplified by

such productions as La neuropatologia [Neuropathology, 1908] and La vita delle farfalle (The

Life of the Butterfly, 1911). Another “dal vero” genre is that of the industrial and agricultural

film with titles such as L’industria della ceramica [The Ceramic Industry, 1908] produced by

Itala Film in Turin or L’industria del cotone (The Cotton Industry, 1910) produced by the Roman

company Cines. Finally, Italian film companies also fully exploited military subjects, first by

filming military drills and ceremonies, then, particularly with the Italian-Turkish conflict (1910-

1911), through individual films and newsreel series from the war front. The Milanese Luca

Comerio actively contributed to this genre of war reportage. His access to the front lines allowed

him to film, among others, La guerra italo-turca (Italian-Turkish War, 1911) and La battaglia

delle due palme (The Battle of the Two Palms, 1912).6

Despite a decline in production and a narrowing of the nonfiction genres after World War

I, Luce favored this cinematic genre from its origins in 1924.7 Luce’s founders, Luciano De Feo

(1894-1974) and Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli (1887-1961), played a key role in this broad

orientation and were instrumental in the company’s 1925 transformation from a private entity to

a public one. Both former collaborators of the liberal politician Luigi Luzzati, De Feo and

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Paulucci di Calboli were journalists who wrote about financial affairs for the Milanese daily La

Perseveranza (The Perseverance).8 When La Perseveranza ceased its publication in 1920,

Paulucci di Calboli entered the diplomatic corps and in late 1922 became the head of Mussolini’s

Foreign Office. De Feo, on the other hand, pursued his interest in cinematography. In 1919, he

became involved with a company known as C.I.T.O.-Cinema, which was the film division of the

Compagnia Italiana per il Traffico con l’Oriente (Italian Company for Commerce with the

Orient). Until its bankruptcy in 1921, the Banca Italiana di Sconto financed the activities of

C.I.T.O. and created C.I.T.O.-Cinema in order to export the films of the Italian trust UCI

(Unione Cinematografica Italiana/Italian Cinematographic Union) to Central and Eastern

Europe. The experience at the short-lived C.I.T.O.-Cinema was fundamental for De Feo as it

enabled him to develop a network of contacts with other European film companies.9 His frequent

European trips and the discovery of the European production of educational films, pushed De

Feo between 1923 and 1924 to create a company aimed at promoting educational filmmaking:

the Sindacato Istruzione Cinematografica (SIC; Union for Educational Cinematography). This

private company started with a capital of one million lire. Probably in the interest of political

opportunism, De Feo included Ernesto Civelli, one of the organizers of Mussolini’s March on

Rome, as a member of the company’s administrative board. One of SIC’s most important

productions was Aethiopia (1924), which combined the well established tradition of the films

“dal vero” with that of the travelogue. The continuity with the Italian nonfiction sector of the

early 1900s is evident in the name of the director of Aethiopia: Carlo Martini, whom the SIC sent

to Africa to film the expedition of Corriere della Sera journalist Guelfo Civinini. Martini had

worked as an assistant to Carlo Montuori at Milano Films, which from 1909 had produced a

large number of travelogues and exploration films, including Attraverso la Mesopotamia

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[Crossing Mesopotamia, 1909], Il Natale a Betlemme [Christmas in Bethlehem, 1909],

Attraverso l’Umbria [Crossing Umbria, 1910], Fabbricazione dei cappelli Borsalino

[Manufacturing of Borsalino Hats, 1912], and Congo pittoresco [Picturesque Congo, 1915].10

In 1924, in his new role as head of Mussolini’s Foreign Office, Giacomo Paulucci di

Calboli’s presence was decisive in the transformation of the SIC into the Istituto Nazionale

L.U.C.E. Having heard of De Feo’s remarkable initiative and of its project’s financial challenges,

Paulucci di Calboli counseled his former colleague to appeal to Mussolini’s plans to use cinema

for the political indoctrination of the Italian masses and not just as an educational tool. During

the summer of 1924, SIC screened three films for the dictator: two scientific documentaries, La

vita della pianta [Plant Life, ca. 1923-1925] and La circolazione del sangue [Blood Circulation,

ca. 1923-1925], both directed by Roberto Omegna for Ambrosio Film, and the short SIC biopic

Dove si lavora per la grandezza d’Italia [Where He Works for the Greatness of Italy, 1924]

which portrays Mussolini during his daily work routine at Palazzo Chigi, filmed on July 27, 1924

by Mario Albertelli.11 The screening of the three films and Paulucci di Calboli’s mediation must

have been effective because at the end of September 1924, Mussolini decided to authorize the

General Commissioner for Emigration, diplomat Giuseppe De Michelis, to contribute financially

to the creation of L.U.C.E., an acronym that the dictator himself created and that stood for

L’Unione Cinematografica Educativa (Educational Film Union). In 1924, the government

involved other national institutes in order to bring fresh capital to the newly founded company,

and the following year, with the decree no.1985 (5 November 1925), Mussolini transformed the

private company L.U.C.E. into a fully state-owned entity: the Istituto Nazionale L.U.C.E (or

simply Istituto Luce).12 Through this operation, the share capital of the company rose from one

million lire to two and a half million. Giuseppe De Michelis became the President of the Istituto

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Luce and Paulucci di Calboli its vice-president. De Feo, who remained the company’s effective

leader, assumed the role of General Director. As one of its first endeavors, Luce completed the

production of Aethiopia. In November 1924, the screening of the film in the Augusteo theater in

Rome was the first public event affiliated with the newly formed state company.

Between Continuity and Innovation: The Nonfiction Production

The fascist regime became progressively more involved in the affairs of Luce during its

first years of operation. In order to augment its production, at the end of 1925 the regime

nationalized the institute, as mentioned earlier, and appointed loyal active members of the fascist

party to the post of president: first Filippo Cremonesi (1925-1928), then Alessando Sardi (1928-

1933). Further, the aforementioned decree no. 1000 (3 April 1926) made the exhibition of Luce

films compulsory in all Italian movie theaters, thereby guaranteeing these productions a

dependable commercial exploitation. Still, despite the fascist regime’s heavy involvement, the

film production at Luce did not assume a clear political and propagandistic nature until the

1930s. Instead, in accordance with De Feo’s ideas on educational cinema, Luce continued the

production of nonfiction films pursued by numerous Italian film companies in the previous

decade. A decisive sign of this continuity was, for instance, the decision to assign Roberto

Omegna the direction of numerous scientific and didactic documentary films of both short and

medium-length.13 Also consistent with the cinematic production of the early 1900s, Luce’s

nonfiction production included touristic films presenting cities and regions such as Grado (ca.

1924-1927), Brioni (ca. 1924-1927), La Sicilia [Sicily, ca. 1924-1927], and La Toscana

[Tuscany, ca. 1924-1927]14 and films of civil and religious ceremonies such as La rivista della

guarnigione di Roma [The Inspection of the Rome Garrison, 1924], or Congresso eucaristico a

Roma [Eucharistic Congress in Rome, 1925]. This sort of production began to decline only after

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1928, when De Feo left Luce for the Istituto Internazionale di Cinematografia Educativa

(International Institute for Educational Film), a newly founded institution financed by the League

of Nations and based in Rome.15

[Fig. 1: Luciano De Feo (right) welcomes Louis Lumière (left) at the Istituto Internazionale di Cinematografia Educativa (25 March 1929). [Courtesy of Istituto Luce (Rome), Archivio Fotografico, Reparto Attualità.]

To better clarify the extent of Luce’s nonfiction production, I will now outline how Luce

was structured in its first years of operation and highlight a few examples of films from its vast

catalogue. Luce’s structure became increasingly intricate, reflecting the level of bureaucracy

characteristic of a fascist-controlled company. The organization into specific film production

sectors strongly denoted Luce’s interest in nonfiction films aimed at “propaganda,” a term that in

the political context of the time had the positive connotations of publicity and not solely that of

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news manipulation. Initially, Luce comprised four divisions, each identified as a Cinemateca

(Cinematheque). They consisted of a) Cinemateca Agricola Nazionale (Cinematheque for

National Agriculture), b) Cinemateca Industriale di Propaganda e di Istruzione (Cinematheque

for Industrial Propaganda and Education), c) Cinemateca per l’Arte e l’Istruzione Religiosa

(Cinematheque for Art and Religious Education), d) Cinemateca di Cultura Nazionale

(Cinematheque for National Culture ). Governmental decrees established each of these divisions

and, over the years, other political interventions allowed this already complex system of

Cinematheques to grow even further.16 By the end of 1927, Luce consisted of eight divisions

including the newly created: e) Cinemateca Militare di Istruzione e Propaganda (Cinematheque

for Military Education and Propaganda), f) Cinemateca Turistica e di Propaganda Marinara

(Cinematheque for Touristic and Maritime Propaganda), g) Cinemateca Igienica e di

Prevenzione Sociale (Cinematheque for Social Hygiene and Prevention), h) Cinemateca

Propaganda e Cultura all’Estero (Cinematheque for Culture and Propaganda

Abroad).17

A board directed each division and selected production objectives. One of the first films

that the Agricultural division released was La battaglia del grano [The Wheat Campaign, 1925],

a thirty-minute documentary in which the educational aspects of the film overshadowed the

regime’s propaganda (Mussolini had called his political intervention for improving Italian

agriculture “battaglia del grano,” literally, the “battle for grain”). The documentary illustrates

several methods of plowing, fertilizing, and seeding. Similarly, the films of the Industrial

Cinematheque sought to achieve the same educational goals with regard to various sectors of

Italian manufacturing: Col ferro e col fuoco [With Iron and with Fire, 1929], Dal coniglio al

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cappello [From the Rabbit to the Hat, 1925], and Le ferrovie dello stato italiano: locomotive and

locomotori [National Railways of Italy: Locomotives and Engines, ca. 1924-1931].

The National Culture division included several sub-sections that produced nonfiction

films on various aspects of Italian culture: art history, archeology, history, geography, science,

literature.18 Their production included films such as L’inaugurazione degli scavi d’Ercolano

[The Inauguration of the Excavation of Herculaneum, 1927], Pagine dantesche [Dantesque

Pages, ca. 1924-1927], La Toscana storico artistica [Historical and Artistic Tuscany, ca. 1924-

1927]. The scientific section, which Roberto Omegna directed, was the most prolific of this

division. With De Feo’s endorsement, Omegna worked for Luce from 1926 to 1942. After the

Ambrosio company folded, Omegna moved to Rome around 1925 and produced a few scientific

documentaries with the intention of distributing them himself. In 1924, Luce acquired a few of

his works, including La circolazione del sangue [Blood Circulation , ca. 1923-1925] and La vita

della pianta [Plant Life, ca. 1923-1925], and began distributing them. The most remarkable ones

were La vita delle farfalle [The Life of Butterflies, ca. 1923-1925], La mantide religiosa [The

Praying Mantis, ca. 1923-1925], La vita dei ragni epeira [The Life of Epeira Spiders, ca. 1923-

1925], La vita del grillo campestre [The Life of Crickets, ca. 1923-1925], and La vita delle api

[The Life of Bees, ca. 1923-1925]. Once a Luce employee, Omegna spent countless hours,

between 1927 and 1930, at the aquarium of Naples and at the nearby Agricultural Institute of

Portici. Some of his productions, included in the scientific section of the Cinematheque for

National Culture, were Abitanti del mare [Sea Dwellers, 1927], Navigatori argentei del mare

[Silver Navigators of the Sea, 1927], Vita del ragno [Spider Life, 1927], Piccoli insetti artigiani

[Small Artisan Insects, 1927], Lotta fra l’octopus (polpo) e l’homarus (gambero) [Fight between

the Octopus and the Shrimp, 1928], and Il cavalluccio marino [The Sea Horse, 1928].19

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Returning to Luce’s divisions and their nonfiction films, the Cinematheque for Military

Education and Propaganda produced films for educational purposes, but most remarkably

pursued the objective of documenting Italian war history. To fulfill this goal, this Military

division acquired footage from the Film Section of the Royal Italian Army (Regio Esercito –

Sezione Cinematografica) and reedited it in Guerra nostra [Our War, 1927]. The Cinematheque

for Touristic and Maritime Propaganda produced such works as Esercitazioni navali [Naval

Exercises, 1927] and Costruzione e varo del transatlantico ‘Roma’ [Construction and Launching

of the Transatlantic ‘Roma’, 1927].20 Finally, the Cinematheque for Social Hygiene and

Prevention contributed to the production of educational films with such works as Lotta contro la

tubercolosi [Fight against Tuberculosis, 1928] and L’igiene nella scuola [School Hygiene,

1929].21

Beyond educational production, Luce’s non-fiction output included newsreels, known

as Cinegiornali. The release of the Cinegiornali intensely occupied the company from 1927 to

1945, both in terms of silent productions (1927-1932) and sound ones (1931-1945). Luce

produced three to four newsreels each week; each Cinegiornale, during both the silent and sound

periods, included between four and eight news segments. With the filming of civil and religious

ceremonies, inaugurations of monuments and public works, sporting events, and other

noteworthy happenings that allowed the newsreels to mimic the national newspapers’ coverage,

the Cinegiornale became a key Luce prerogative. While indebted to other nations’ news

initiatives, most remarkably France, the United Kingdom, and even the Soviet Union, newsreels

were also profoundly linked to Italian nonfiction cinema.22 Their format grew from the evolution

of actualities scenes into short news films and then into collections of news segments grouped

into one issue.23 In Italy, in 1912, the Genoese Antonio Maria Cristoffanini was the first to

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produce newsreels. The first exhibition of his Rivista cinematografica d’Italia [Film Review of

Italy], amounting to 125 meters and consisting of six news segments related to both Italian and

international events, occurred on January 10, 1912.24 The name Rivista, just as Cinegiornale,

linked newsreels to the inspiring universe of press and journalism, but it possibly also referred to

the variety of events that Cristoffanini’s newsreels intended to cover. The Rivista continued for

at least six months, with regular issues on Wednesdays and Fridays. An advertisement in La vita

cinematografica described the Rivista as an “animated journal of the main Italian events with

reportages from everywhere in the world” and referred to a network of “effective” operators

spread around Italy and the rest of the world.25 The last known issue of the Rivista, no. 21, was

released on June 15, 1912.26 During World War I, then, the Regio Esercito – Sezione

Cinematografica (Royal Army – Film Section) produced the Giornale della guerra d’Italia, also

known as Al fronte d’Italia (The Italian Battlefront, or The Italian Front, 1917), the first Italian

example of state-produced newsreels.

With the creation of the Cinegiornale, Luce continued the practice of repurposing old

footage that it had mastered with the Cinemateche, which converted travelogues into touristic

films and actuality scenes into military films. Very often, the production of educational

documentaries, that are structurally different from newsreels, relied on footage originally

produced for the Cinegiornali. Similarly, the so-called film di repertorio, special retrospective

productions consisting of old newsreel materials, were celebratory films that presented the

regime’s accomplishments A clear example of this last genre is the series of anniversary films

on Italy under Mussolini’s rule: Anno sesto [Sixth Year, 1928], Anno VII [Seventh Year, 1929],

Anno IX [Ninth Year, 1931]. The re-use and re-purposing of the same footage in both

documentaries and newsreels permits me to recognize the intersections between these diverse

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genres despite obvious distinctions between two key strands of Luce’s nonfiction production.

The most evident differences between the documentaries and the Cinegiornale are in their length

and in their focus on the subject represented. The goals of these two productions are similar:

educate, elevate, inform, and document. The Cinegiornale helped create among Italian spectators

a sense of national belonging, portraying rituals, traditions, festivities, heroes, and ceremonies.

The frequency with which the Cinegiornali were screened and the territory they covered

contributed to this sense of unity.

The documentaries, on the other hand, by departing from the journalistic aspects of their

subject and without any obligation to actuality, achieved better aesthetic results through editing

and photography. It is through a combination of documentaries and newsreels, with their

allegedly objective perspective on the world, past and present, that the fascist regime sought to

communicate its own viewpoint to the Italian public. By avoiding explicit ideological preaching

and direct indoctrination (at least until the mid-1930s), Luce’s propaganda consisted in

constantly reporting on the fascist regime’s accomplishments and the progress Italy was making

under Mussolini’s guidance.

Exhibition Network, Newsreel Exchanges and Sound Technology

Transitioning very rapidly from a private production company into a state company that

was also in charge of distribution and exhibition, Luce had to face the problem of a limited

exhibition network, especially when considering the small rural communities referenced and

addressed in several of its documentaries. In his Cinque anni di vita dell’Istituto Nazionale

“L.U.C.E.” Luce president Alessandro Sardi emphasized that “the thirty eight hundred movie

theaters of the Kingdom are located in just twenty three hundred municipalities, which brings the

number of municipalities without a movie theater to about five thousand, to which one must add

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the thousands and thousands of hamlets and rural villages.”27 To screen its films and fulfill its

educational role, then, Luce initially relied on a network of local organizations, schools, public

institutions, and clubs, selected according to topic and production agency, or Cinematheque. That

is why, for instance, the Comitati Provinciali Granari (Agricultural Provincial Committees)

distributed the films with agricultural themes and the Dopolavoro (Leisure-Time Organizations)

screened the industrial division’s films aimed at improving Italians’ professional skills.

Additionally, Luce reached an agreement with the Società Pittaluga to create twenty five new

movie theaters.28 Moreover, with Pittaluga, which had the nation’s best distribution network,

Luce agreed on the distribution of the Cinegiornali. According to this agreement, Pittaluga

received 25% (at least until 1930) of the revenues from the screening of the Cinegiornali.29

Further, in 1927 Luce acquired twenty five Fiat trucks equipped for movie projection. With a

driver and a projectionist on board, these so-called Cinema ambulanti (Mobile Movie Theaters)

brought Luce films and the regime’s ideology, free of charge, to hundreds of remote locations.30

Showing rural communities the modernization of the country through cutting-edge technologies

was certainly one of the major propaganda successes of Luce during its first years of operation.

Two years after Mussolini inaugurated the fleet of specially-equipped trucks on May 25, 1927,

Sardi noted, “the work of the mobile movie theaters continues uninterrupted, relentless: we have

completed over twenty five hundreds projections per year, in front of thousands of spectators.”31

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[Fig. 2: Mussolini visits one of the garages at the Luce studios in 1927. [Courtesy of Istituto Luce (Rome), Archivio Fotografico, Reparto Attualità.]

After having resolved the difficulties related to the national distribution of its educational

films, Luce embarked on a series of commercial exchanges with foreign film companies

specializing in newsreels. The goal of these exchanges was twofold: exposing Italians to events

in other countries and enabling foreign audiences to admire Italian social and economic progress

as well as the country’s artistic and natural beauty. Throughout De Feo’s directorship, Luce

acquired newsreels from foreign companies and inserted them into its weekly releases with its

own footage. Foreign companies were doing the same. In his institutional account, Tre anni di

vita dell’Istituto Nazionale “L.U.C.E.” (1927), then Luce president Filippo Cremonesi wrote

about “120.000 meters of positive film” exported to foreign countries.32 One of the first of these

exchanges was established with William Randolph Hearst’s newsreel services. On May 22,

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1927, the San Antonio Light, one of Hearst’s own newspapers, reported a statement issued by

Luce detailing the agreement with Hearst finalized a few days earlier:

His Excellency, Chief of the government, … approved and signed the agreement

between the Luce and the great American organization, an agreement which

provides for the publication of photographs taken by the Luce and the exhibition

of films produced by our national institute in the cinematographic halls and

theaters served by the powerful American organization by William Randolph

Hearst, the great chief of the press of the United States, who is the animator of

this movement.33

Other archival documents confirm that Mussolini and Hearst had reached an agreement,

in that period, specifically on May 19, 1927.34 At the end of that year, Cremonesi noted the

following: “the agreement has already been in place for a few months with full satisfaction of the

two companies and, without a doubt, it will become greater and greater, including, perhaps, a

closer collaboration in the scientific, entomologic, and biological fields in which Italy has

decisively shown its prominence.”35

Scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have almost completely ignored the exchanges

between the Hearst Corporation and Luce. The evidence, however, is there. Several Luce

newsreels show American news and images, which likely resulted from the exchange agreement

with the Hearst Corporation. Upon close inspection, they reveal how Luce used such foreign

materials in its Cinegiornali. Inserted in between Italian segments, the American ones showcased

a country where sensational events, impressive natural disasters, or spectacular military drills

were constantly taking place. Luce wanted Italian audiences to look at the United States with

condescension for a country spoiled by consumeristic decadence and grandiose ambitions. The

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inserted intertitles, first, and captions, later, contributed to this effect. For instance, in a segment

of a silent newsreel entitled Concorso di bellezza su un transatlantico [Beauty Contest on a

Transatlantic Liner, December 1928], the intertitle reads: “America – The usual craze for beauty

contests” before looking at a group of young women in bathing suits dancing and laughing in

various places on the liner.

The United States was not the only target of the Cinegiornale’s reinterpreting strategies.

During these first years, the company established similar exchange contracts with the German

company Universum Film AG (UFA). In Cinque anni di vita dell’Istituto Nazionale “L.U.C.E.”,

Alessandro Sardi described the two agreements with UFA. The first one, finalized in October

1927, established the exchanges between Italy and a group of European countries including

Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria, and Poland. The second one, dating from June 1929,

set up a more limited geographical distribution that enabled closer exchange relationships “with

the countries excluded from the [first] agreement, with the advantage of securing a greater

distribution for our films while receiving a larger quantity of diverse foreign newsreels for our

Cinegiornali.”36 Some of the new contracts resulting from the renewed 1929 agreement with

UFA were with the Swedish Swenska Film Export, the Swiss Officine Cinematographique, the

Czechoslovakian Elekta Journal, and the Hungarian Magyar Film Iroda. The newsreels that Luce

obtained and screened thanks to these European exchanges often presented folkloristic

celebrations or views of attractive landscapes.

An examination of Luce’s internal archival documents, particularly the notes from the

business meetings held between 1927 and 1931, shows how the exchange contracts with foreign

companies remained consistent throughout the years. These agreements did not result in great

economic gains: for its survival, Luce depended on its founding public corporations. What these

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contacts offered was access to a variety of news and educational materials that made the

company’s newsreels and documentaries fairly appealing to Italian audiences. Once edited and

manipulated, the same materials contributed, by contrast, to a view of the Italian nation under

fascism as a modern, yet sober and beautiful country.

The exchanges of footage between Luce and foreign newsreel companies was not the

only reason motivating these transnational contacts. Luce’s president Alessandro Sardi saw the

introduction of sound technologies as a threat to the success and the survival of the company.

This concern led him to look overseas to acquire the technology and the know-how necessary to

survive. In a detailed letter to Mussolini, dated July 11, 1930, Sardi offered an assessment of the

Italian film industry during this period of transition and modernization. The inevitable

comparison in terms of technological progress between Luce on the one hand and the US and

Europe on the other hand leaves the Italian film company in a strikingly disadvantageous

position. Sardi noted that foreign newsreel companies were introducing sound technology in

Italy with the result that “the most important Italian theaters are equipped with the sound system

and there is no doubt that their number will increase with a faster and faster pace.”37 Trusting the

quality of Luce’s productions, Sardi concludes his letter to Mussolini with a consideration that

referred to Italian audiences and to their changing taste: “silent Luce newsreels, … although

artistically and technically impeccable, being in daily contact with the sound productions, will be

rightly considered outdated and will ultimately be considerably diminished in their importance

and efficacy.”38

What worried Sardi and Luce’s administration was principally the competition with the

newreels produced by Pittaluga, Fox, and Paramount because these companies had successfully

transitioned to sound technology and were filming the kind of events that “should have been a

17


Luce exclusive”.39 In 1930, Pittaluga produced the first Italian sound film, La canzone

dell’amore (The Song of Love, 1930) while, in the context of newsreel production, the American

company Fox had already transitioned to sound technology since the late 20s and turned this

transition into remarkable public events. On May 1927, Fox exhibited the first sound newsreel in

New York: it showed Charles A. Lindbergh taking off on his solo flight to Paris. In the same

month, a Fox troupe was in Italy recording Mussolini who on camera greeted both American and

Italian-American people. The resulting newsreel, screened in New York on September 28, 1927,

matched for the first time Mussolini’s face and voice for the world to experience.

The discussions about the necessity of technological modernization for Luce extended

beyond president Sardi and the Duce: they also involved the members of the company’s

administration. In the notes of a business meeting held on December 30, 1929, Sardi presented

the draft of an agreement that Luce was reaching with Fox Movietone. According to this

agreement, the Italian company could request that Fox Movietone produce sound newsreels of

noteworthy events for Luce’s Cinegiornali.40 In another meeting, on July 24, 1930, Sardi

repeated the points he made in the aforementioned letter to Mussolini and exemplified the

challenges that Luce faced by referring to the exporting of Le nozze dei principi di Piemonte

[The Wedding of the Princes of Piedmont, 1930]. The film achieved “great financial success in

Italy, [yet] as a silent production could sell in the United States for only $500”.41 In response to

Sardi’s letter and the dictator’s solicitation, Luce’s founding agencies injected ten million lires

into the company’s coffers. The increased budget enabled the purchasing of modern equipment

necessary for the company’s 1930 transition to sound. A few key commercial agreements soon

followed. On November 5, 1930, Luce finalized a contract with RCA Photophone for the

acquisition of a Sound News Recorder Truck and the regulation of royalty payments between the

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two companies.42 On June 8, 1931, internal business records indicate that the members of the

administration “convened at the Planetarium (…) to listen to and appreciate the new tests of

[Italian] sound cinematography.”43 Shortly after, Luce began producing its own series of sound

newsreels, filmed with the RCA Photophone technology. Still, given that not all Italian movie

theaters were equipped with sound technology, Luce continued the production of silent

newsreels and educational documentaries for at least one year, through 1932.44

[Fig. 3: Opening page of the Luce-RCA contract (5 November 1930). [Courtesy of Archivio di Stato (Forlì), Archivio Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli Barone.]

What may be surprising in the conversation between Mussolini and Sardi and among

Luce administrators is the emphasis on the commercial, and not political, implications associated

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with films’ transition to sound. The lack of a discussion of the ideological and aesthetic

advantages of the technological advancement signals Luce’s inability to realize the medium’s

new potential and thus abandon traditional forms of nonfiction production. The evidence is

plentiful. Both the silent and the sound versions of the Cinegiornale continued to rely on the

same segments. The subjects, the sequence, and the style of the newsreels remained virtually

identical, at least initially, while other companies, such as Pittaluga with its Rivista Cines (Cines

Revue), added music and entertainment value to their early sound newsreels. For instance,

Pittaluga hired actors Elio Steiner and Grazia Del Rio to introduce, on camera, the segments of

the Rivista Cines.45 At a technological and aesthetic disadvantage against domestic and foreign

competitors, Luce was unable to take advantage of its protected position within the Italian film

market.

Conclusion

Historians and film scholars have mostly focused on Luce’s strategic role within the

history of the fascist regime. These narratives often attribute consistency and coherence to the

company which instead was characterized by internal conflicts, missed opportunities, and

puzzling operations despite its invariably political function. For instance, how do we explain the

company’s very limited production of fiction films aimed at magnifying the regime’s

accomplishments? How to account for the failure of the heavily subsidized fiction film Camicia

Nera [Black Shirt, 1933], a production that celebrated the tenth anniversary of the March on

Rome?46

While in the eyes of its fascist administrators, Luce was chiefly a key propaganda tool,

the company’s business records and the range of its nonfiction productions (at least during the

first decade of activity) indicated a persistence of commercial preoccupations, and not just

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political will. Between 1924 and 1933, Luce’s extensive nonfiction production revived a number

of genres that other Italian companies had exploited during the preceding twenty years: industrial

films, touristic views, scientific and educational documentaries. The company’s major

innovation was the introduction of newsreels, their serialization and regular weekly release, and

their effective distribution throughout the national territory. Luce productions engaged in

ideological propaganda mostly by showing Italians and foreign audiences the results of fascist

politics and by contributing to the mythologizing of the figure of the Duce. But the company’s

output is aesthetically much more varied than a mere collection of short propaganda films.

Today, the availability of hundreds of videos and still images on Luce website

(www.archivioluce.com) and on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/cinecittaluce) ought to be,

for both historians and film scholars, an impetus to further explore not only the role of cinema in

building political consensus during fascism, but also the aesthetic position of Luce in the context

of Italian film history.

I wish to thank Patrizia Cacciani of the Archivio Luce for helping me locate relevant documents

in preparation for this article. I am also grateful to the staff of the Archivio di Stato in Forlì for

assisting me in my research of Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli’s records. I am truly indebted to

Giorgio Bertellini and Elena Past for their patient readings and productive comments on early

drafts of this article. All translations into English are my own, unless otherwise noted. This is for

Jamie and Grace.

1 In the recently published key reference work Dizionario del fascismo, the entry about Luce

describes the newsreels produced during the fascist years as “a powerful instrument of

propaganda and an efficient means of consensus: through them all Italians got to know the

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Duce’s image and soon even his voice”. Gabriele D’Autilia, “Istituto Luce,” in Dizionario del

fascismo, ed. Victoria De Grazia and Sergio Luzzato (Turin: Einaudi, 2002), vol. 1: 684-688.

2 See Gian Piero Brunetta, Cinema italiano fra le due guerre. Fascismo e politica

cinematografica (Milan: Mursia, 1975); Philip V. Cannistraro, La fabbrica del consenso.

Fascismo e mass media (Rome: Laterza, 1975); Mino Argentieri, L’occhio del regime:

Informazione e propaganda nel cinema del fascismo (Florence: Vallecchi, 1979); Massimo

Cardillo, Il duce in moviola: politica e divismo nei cinegiornali e documentari del Luce (Bari:

Dedalo, 1983); Giampaolo Bernagozzi, Il cinema allo specchio. Appunti per una storia del

documentario (Bologna: Pàtron, 1985); James Hay, Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy. The

Passing of the Rex (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); Mino Argentieri, ed., Schermi

di guerra: Cinema italiano, 1939-1945 (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995); Ernesto G. Laura, Le stagioni

dell’aquila. Storia dell’Istituto Luce (Rome: Ente dello spettacolo, 2000); Ruth Ben-Ghiat,

Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Stefano

Luconi and Guido Tintori, L’ombra lunga del fascio. Canali di propaganda fascista per gli

italiani d’America (Milan: M&B Publishing, 2004); Marco Bertozzi, Storia del documentario

italiano (Venice: Marsilio, 2008).

3 Camicia nera [Black Shirt, 1933] by Giovacchino Forzano, Il cammino degli eroi [The Heroes’

Journey, 1936] by Corrado D’Errico, and Scipione l’Africano (The Defeat of Hannibal, 1937) are

three fiction films produced during Luce’s first years of activity.

4 See Aldo Bernardini’s reference works, Cinema muto italiano. I film 'dal vero' 1895-1914

(Gemona: La Cineteca del Friuli, 2002) and Cinema delle origini in Italia. I film 'dal vero' di

produzione estera. 1895-1907 (Gemona: La Cineteca del Friuli, 2008).

22

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cineteca_del_Friuli


5 Tom Gunning, “Before Documentary: Early Nonfiction Films and the ‘View’ Aesthetic,” in

Uncharted Territory. Essays on Early Nonfiction Film, ed. Daan Hertogs and Nico de Klerk

(Amsterdam: Nederlands Filmmuseum, 1997), 14.

6 On Comerio and, more in general, on non-fiction filmmaking during the war in Libya, see Sila

Berruti and Luca Mazzei, “’Il giornale mi lascia freddo.’ I film ‘dal vero’ dalla Libia (1911-

1912) e il pubblico italiano,” Immagine. Note di Storia del Cinema, no. 3 (2011): 51-100. This

entire issue of Immagine is devoted to the film representations of the Italian-Turkish War (1911-

1912).

7 On the decline of the nonfiction genres, see Aldo Bernardini, FDV/1, 19-22. According to

Bernardini, the introduction of the feature-length film led to a decrease in nonfiction productions

since exhibitors gradually started considering “dal vero” films as program fillers. On the same

subject, see also Elena Mosconi, “La vita autentica con la sua poesia. L’operatore e gli ambiti

della non fiction,” in Moltiplicare l’istante. Beltrami, Comerio e Pacchioni tra fotografia e

cinema, ed. Elena Dagrada, Elena Mosconi, and Silvia Paoli (Milan: Il Castoro, 2007), 66-86.

Mosconi attributes the decline of the nonfiction films to the spectators’ disillusionment with

cinema’s ways of representing reality, particularly after the filming of the Italian-Turkish War

and World War I.

8 Luigi Luzzati was the Italian Finance Minister four times between 1891 and 1906 and became

Prime Minister in 1910.

9 More details on the CITO-Cinema and on its end can be found in Riccardo Redi, “La ‘Cito-

Cinema’: storia di un fallimento,” lmmagine. Note di storia del cinema, no. 6 (Fall 1987): 5-12.

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10 Carlo Montuori eventually became a successful director of cinematography. He worked on the

cinematography of Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves, 1948) and continued his career until his

death in 1968.

11 De Feo remembers these circumstances in his “Come nacque l’Istituto Nazionale ‘Luce’,”

Schermo 2, no. 7 (July 1937): 20-22.

12 The national institutions that concurred to the creation of Luce were Cassa Nazionale per le

Assicurazioni Sociali, Istituto Nazionale delle Assicurazioni, Assicurazioni d’Italia, the Opera

Nazionale Combattenti, and the Cassa Nazionale per le Assicurazioni contro gli Infortuni sul

Lavoro.

13 Before his employment at Luce, this recognized pioneer of Italian cinema, who had been with

Arturo Ambrosio one of the most prominent protagonists of the Turin cinema scene during the

first quarter of the century, was considered the father of scientific documentaries. On Omegna’s

career and on his central role in the film company Ambrosio, see Gianetto’s essay in this

collection. Also, see Virgilio Tosi, “Il pioniere Roberto Omegna (1876-1948),” Bianco & Nero,

no. 3 (May-June 1979): 2-68.

14 The first two films are available on Luce online archive. The other two may be lost or may

have been included in later productions on the same subject. The production dates are uncertain,

but they probably range between 1924 and 1927. All the above titles come from Filippo

Cremonesi, Due anni di vita dell’Istituto Nazionale ‘L.U.C.E.’ (Rome: Istituto Nazionale

L.U.C.E., 1926), passim.

15 The International Institute for Educational Film was active between 1928 and 1937. In

addition to De Feo, Louis Lumière was a member of the first Board of Directors. Between 1933

and 1937, Rudolf Arnheim became involved in the Institute as well, most prominently as a

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member of the Film Encyclopedia committee. The Institute released a multilingual journal, The

International Review of Educational Cinematography, and acquired copies of educational films

from affiliated international film companies. On the topic, see Christel Taillibert, L'Institut

international du cinématographe éducatif. Regards sur le rôle du cinéma éducatif dans la

politique internationale du fascisme italien (Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 1999) and Zoë Druick,

“The International Educational Cinematograph Institute, Reactionary Modernism, and the

Formation of Film Studies,” Canadian Journal of Film Studies 16, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 80-97.

16 The following Royal Decrees created the first four divisions: March 18, 1926 (Cinematheque

for National Agriculture), August 6, 1926 (Cinematheque for Industrial Propaganda and

Education), September 21, 1926 (Cinematheque for Art and Religious Education), and December

26, 1926 (Cinematheque for National Culture).

17 The first three of these newly formed divisions followed the January 30, 1927 Royal Decree.

The June 2, 1927 Royal Decree established the last division.

18 By 1929, the Cinematheque for Art and Religious Education, which had never been fully

active, merged into the larger Cinematheque for National Culture.

19 In the yearly records of Luce, the increasing length of the sections dedicated to the scientific

film productions is a proof of Omegna’s prominent role. See Cremonesi, Due anni di vita

dell’Istituto, 21; id. Tre anni di vita dell’Istituto Nazionale ‘L.U.C.E.’ (Rome: Istituto Nazionale

L.U.C.E., 1927), 29-30; Alessandro Sardi, Cinque anni di vita dell’Istituto Nazionale ‘L.U.C.E.’

(Rome: Istituto Nazionale L.U.C.E., 1929), 60-62.

20 The touristic section of the Cinematheque for Touristic and Maritime Propaganda shared films

and ideas with the geographic section of the Cinematheque for National Culture.

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21 The Cinematheque for Culture and Propaganda Abroad only aimed at the distribution of

Luce’s films in foreign countries.

22 Raymond Fielding cites the French company Pathé as the first producer of newsreels in

Europe in 1909 or 1910. See Raymond Fielding, The American Newsreel: 1911-1967 (Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1972), 69.

23 For details on the historical evolution leading to the newsreels industry and on the introduction

of Pathé’s Weekly into the United States, see Fielding, The American Newsreel, 3-28 and 64-79.

On Italian newsreels, see FDV/1, 12-14. Bernardini rightly points to the 1908 Messina and

Reggio Calabria earthquake and to the 1911 Italian-Turkish War as two events that pushed

Italian film companies toward the production of short series of actualities and news films -

antecedents of the newsreel format.

24 “La rivista cinematografica d’Italia,” La Cine-Fono – Rivista Fono-cinematografica, no. 183

(13 Jan. 1912): 8.

25 La vita cinematografica, no. 1 (15 Jan. 1912): 11.

26 Maurizio Ferretti, “Spunti e appunti per la preistoria: gli anni ’10. Cristoffanini & dintorni,” in

I produttori liguri (Genoa: Comune di Genova, 1985), 79-87.

27 Sardi, Cinque anni di vita dell’Istituto, 79.

28 Cremonesi, Due anni di vita dell’Istituto, 30.

29 Archivio Storico dell’Istituto Luce, Rome, “Verbale della seduta del consiglio di

amministrazione del 30 dicembre 1929 – VIII,” business notes, vol. 4, pp. 92-94.

30 Consider the affinity between Luce’s screening network of the Cinema ambulanti and the

Soviet Union experience of mobile movie theatres, through a combination of trucks and trains.

While no precise archival evidence has so far documented the Soviet influence on Luce’s

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establishment of Cinema ambulanti, one may hypothesize that De Feo, in his role at CITO-

Cinema and as a frequent traveler to Eastern Europe, was certainly informed of the Soviet mobile

screening practices, together with their non fiction productions. Luce’s president Sardi was also

well aware of Soviet cinema and propaganda. In 1932 he published an article in the fascist

newspaper Popolo d’Italia in which he offered an overview of the organization and the

production record of the Soviet film industry. His article “La cinematografia in Russia” is quoted

in Laura, Le stagioni dell’aquila, 62.


32 Filippo Cremonesi, Tre anni di vita dell’Istituto, 71.

33 “Hearst Film Company acquires huge Rights throughout Italy,” The San Antonio Light, May

22, 1927, 4.

34 Archivio Storico Istituto Luce, Rome, “Verbale della seduta del consiglio direttivo del 14

aprile 1927 – Anno V,” business notes, vol. 2, pp. 10-11; and Archivio Centrale dello Stato,

Rome (hereafter ACS), Segreteria Particolare del Duce, Carteggio Ordinario, container 1251, file

509.797/1, Luciano De Feo to Alessandro Chiavolini, 21 May 1927.

35 Cremonesi, Tre anni di vita dell’Istituto, 71.


37 ACS, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 1931-1933, file 3.3.12/29000.1.6, Alessandro

Sardi to Benito Mussolini, 11 July 1930, p. 2.

38 ibid.

39 ibid., p. 3.


dicembre 1929 – VIII,” business notes, vol. 4, p. 83.

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luglio 1930 – VIII,” business notes, vol. 4, p. 188.

42 Archivio di Stato, Forlì, Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli Barone Papers, container 246, file 15,

“R.C.A. Fox”.

43 Archivio Storico Istituto Luce, Rome, “Verbale della seduta del consiglio direttivo dell’8

giugno 1931,” business notes, vol. 6, p. 1.

44 In 1931, Luce produced its first sound documentary, Lo stormo atlantico [The Atlantic Fleet],

using the German technology Tobis-Klangfurt. In fact, thanks to its agreement with UFA, Luce

could send its productions to Germany and have them reedited with sound.

45 Alfredo Baldi, “Cines ‘in corto’,” Immagine. Note di storia del cinema, no. 20 (Spring 1992):

18-24.

46 Other contradictions related to Luce’s effectiveness (or lack thereof) in the construction of

consensus for the fascist regime include the rationale for the creation in 1938 of a second

company specializing in non-fiction productions, INCOM – Industria Cortometraggi Milano

(INCOM – Milan Short Film Industry). Puzzling may also be the fact that in 1933 Mussolini

invited Cines to film Mussolinia di Sardegna [Mussolinia in Sardinia, 1933] for the inauguration

of one of the regime’s new towns.

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Istituto Nazionale Luce: A National Company with an International Reach

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