Dr. Fiore Presents About Her In-progress Documentary at Georgetown University in Florence

Linked to a class on Italian American film taught by the director Dr. Fulvio Orsitto that explores issues of the mixed cultural identity of Italian immigrants and descendants in the U.S., the talk allowed the students to explore how this identity was further complicated as Italian descendants were sent back to Italy as fighting soldiers and governing officers of the AMGOT (Allied Military Government Occupied Territories). Included in President Roosevelt’s strategy of turning the American forces from enemies to relatives, this approach proved to be successful as illustrated in the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (1944) and its film adaptation by Henry King (1945), which were at the core of Fiore’s talk for the attention they also pay to food availability during the war.

The second part of the talk was an interactive session in which students were invited to look at Fiore’s gallery of video clips about food practices around the time of the Landing. The students’ comments and questions about the interviews with direct witnesses of the war opened up a debate about content and methodological issues, from the differences in food access depending on social class and geographical location to the tension between actual experience and recollection, as well as institutional historiographic reconstruction and propaganda about hunger and feeding.

The talk was part of Fiore’s current sabbatical project titled “Memories of the Landing,” the in-progress documentary that she is working on in collaboration with Awen Films.

 

Georgetown University‘s seat in Florence is Villa Le Balze in nearby Fiesole, a hilly town overlooking the city. It’s an early 20th century building enriched by beautiful gardens, all in the Renaissance revival style where students attend classes and take part in cultural and academic activities such as this talk.