La Cineteca del Friuli: First World War Films

>> View collection The Cineteca del Friuli holds in its collections a selection of Italian silent films that make up the "Great War Fund" and can be made available to the audience. They include numerous restorations curated by the Cineteca itself over the years, originating from nitrate copies, and various other acquisitions. The fund includes both documentary, newsreels and fictional movies and can be divided into three groups:

I. films about the war in Libya, that Italy fought between 1911 and 1912 against the Ottoman Empire and a forerunner of the First World War. Both documentaries and fictional films want to bolster the Italian military intervention in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica and show the superiority of the Italian military.

II. documentary and war newsreels, made between 1914 and 1918 by the Royal Army, leading the viewer directly to the sites of the Great War - mountains, the trench, the city - close up showing the armies in action, prisoners, arms, devastation and death, but also celebrations for the end of the war and the Italian victory.

III. post-war documentaries, from "Gloria", celebrating the "unnoknw soldier", symbolizing the sacrifice of a whole nation, to "La Sentinella della Patria" which is a portrayal of everyday life – once the war is over – in the sites that were the scene of hostilities.