UMANITA' by Elvira Giallanella ::: Silvia Cignoli, live soundtrack

restored by CSC – Cineteca Nazionale

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"Umanità is a film that allows us to (re)discover a singular pioneer of cinema, Elvira Giallanella, “the other Elvira”. One year after the end of the First World War, she created a kind of pacifist and educational pamphlet about the war, standing in stark contrast to the patriotic and propagandistic films of the time and therefore remarkably ahead of its era, anticipating the more critical perspectives that would emerge after the Second World War.

The film was fortuitously rediscovered in the archives of the Cineteca Nazionale, restored, and finally brought back to life in 2008 through a public screening as part of the project Non solo dive. Pioniere del cinema italiano. Umanità is Elvira Giallanella’s only film as a director; she was also its producer and screenwriter. A film with no real equivalent in the cinema of its time, it represents the remarkable attempt by a woman to bear witness to and convey, through cinema, her own commitment against war.

Introduced by an intertitle presenting it as a “humorous-satirical-educational” work, the film—based on a rhyming children’s story by Vittorio Emanuele Bravetta published in 1915—centres on two young siblings, Tranquillino and Serenetta.

During the night, the children get out of bed: while the little girl sneaks off to steal from the jam jar, her brother helps himself to their father’s cigarettes. The smoke causes Tranquillino to have an anguished dream: the world has been destroyed by a terrible war, and he is given the task of rebuilding it.

The following scenes show Tranquillino retracing the mistakes accumulated throughout human history. Yet even by digging deep and exploring the most remote layers of humanity’s past, he finds nothing but weapons and signs of conflict.

Tranquillino imagines himself as a leader capable of stirring the masses, addressing crowds and preaching the virtues of peace and brotherhood among peoples. After a series of scenes depicting the horrors of war, Tranquillino calls upon the Eternal Father, who eventually appears before him, approving of his intentions and conjuring up a vision of a world of peace and labour."

Maria Coletti

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Photo taken during the "Custodi di Sogni" programme by CSC – Cineteca Nazionale at Cinema Farnese in Rome