“Francesco Pasinetti: Soggetti e Sceneggiature”

Italian filmmaker Francesco Pasinetti (1911-1949) was one of the country’s first film scholars and an accomplished teacher, best known for his work as a film critic and documentary filmmaker. This presentation by Prof. Alberto Zambenedetti brings to light many of his unpublished and unrealized projects.

“Francesco Pasinetti: Soggetti e Sceneggiature” (Scenarios and Screenplays), the new critical edition edited by Zambenedetti is a collection of previously unpublished scenarios, screenplays writings and film projects preserved at the Archivio Carlo Montanaro in Venice, offering fresh insights into Pasinetti’s extraordinary creative vision.

The evening will include a 16-minute screening of Pasinetti’ short documentary “Venezia Minore” (1942), followed by a Q&A and light refreshments. Copies of the book will be available for purchase while supplies last.

Bio

Alberto Zambenedetti

Alberto Zambenedetti is Associate Professor in the Department of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies and the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. He is currently serving as Director of the Cinema Studies Institute. His research focuses on the relationship between people and places in Italian cinema and beyond, with a particular focus on mobilities and urbanism. His latest books is a critical edition of Francesco Pasinetti’s unpublished scenarios and screenplays, “Francesco Pasinetti. Soggetti e sceneggiature” (Marsilio Editori, 2026). This is the first of a series of projects on the Venetian cineaste, which will include a translation of Pasinetti’s theoretical essays, and an edited collection on Francesco and his brother, P.M. Pasinetti. His monograph “Acting Across Borders: Mobility and Identity in Italian Cinema” (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), investigates how the national film industry has grappled with social and cultural anxieties related to human mobility over the last century. His edited volumes “World Film Locations: Florence” (Intellect Book, 2014) and “Cleveland” (Intellect Book, 2016) explore how the cinema has engaged with these cities both as locations and as g/local sites of film production and consumption. Alberto also co-edited two collections on Federico Fellini: “Federico Fellini. Riprese, riletture, (re)visioni” (Franco Cesati Editore, 2016); and, most recently, “Federico Fellini. Centenary Essays” (University of Toronto Press, 2025). With Franco Pierno and Luca Somigli, he co-edited two special clusters of Quaderni d’Italianistica, “Becoming Italian-American” (Vol.38, no.1, 2017) and “Pirandello 150” (Vol. 39, no.2, 2018), respectively. His scholarship has appeared in journals such as “Annali d'Italianistica”, “Studies in European Cinema”, “Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance”, “Short Film Studies”, “The Italianist, Quaderni d’Italianistica”, “The University of Toronto Quarterly”, “ACME”, “Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies”, and “Space and Culture”. Alberto’s film criticism is posted on Gli Spietati (www.spietati.it). He has curated the Italian editions of “Home” (Yann Arthus-Bertrand, 2009), “It Seems to Hang On” (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2015) and “Dawson City: Frozen Time” (Bill Morrison, 2016). Alberto also contributed essays to the home video releases of “Fire at Sea” (Gianfranco Rosi, 2016), “Dawson City: Frozen Time” (Bill Morrison, 2016), and “Fellini’s Casanova” (Federico Fellini, 1976 (2021). Zambenedetti teaches a variety of courses in Italian cinema, on time and temporality in film, on film noir (particularly in the Mediterranean context), and on cities in/and film.

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