CBA TRIESTE The Cinematic Battle for the Adriatic: Films, Frontiers, and the Trieste Crisis
The project CBA TRIESTE, coordinated by Dr. Dunja Jelenković, researcher at Ca' Foscari University in Venice, analyses cinematic practices related to the Trieste Crisis (1945-1954), the diplomatic struggle over the Italo-Yugoslav borderlands at the outset of the Cold War. Both countries produced several films about these events, often utilizing the same footage – Yugoslav partisans in Trieste, Italians leaving the region, political protests – but framing them in conflicting ways: as occupation/liberation, migration/exodus, anticommunist/antifascist protests. As the conflict coincided with the establishment of film festivals, the festival circuit became an arena in which the struggle for cultural hegemony took place. Taking festivals as Lieux de mémoire, CBA TRIESTE explores how the cinematic representation of the struggle for this territory has been employed to construct politically suitable cultural memories related to the conflict’s national and ideological concerns.
The struggle for the Northern Adriatic remains one of the most controversial issues in contemporary Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia. This is due to the violence of the period, including accusations of war crimes committed by both sides, and Italian emigration from the areas that became part of socialist Yugoslavia. Hence, in 2004 the Italian government established Giorno del Ricordo to commemorate what it terms the “Italian tragedy” in the territories that it lost to Yugoslavia. This has fuelled the rediscovery of this once-marginalised topic and inspired the restoration of old and production of new films on this subject. As such, any political analysis of this disputed past, is indisputably a political analysis of the present.
LINK TO THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF THE PROJECT
Dr. Dunja Jelenković is a historian, a specialist in Yugoslav documentary film and the cultural history of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Her research focuses on Yugoslav film festivals and the relationship between image, history and memory. She is currently a researcher at the Ca' Foscari University in Venice with her postdoctoral project CBA TRIESTE - Cinematic Battle for the Adriatic: Films, Frontiers and the Trieste Crisis.
Announcements/
Restored Copy of the Film Red Boogie by Director Karpo Godina
16. 05. 2024The third symposium, East/West: Borders Through Film and History, which explores life along the Slovenian-Italian border through moving images, delivered an exceptional film experience on May 7 at 8:30 p.m. in the House of Film in Gorica. A freshly restored copy of the film Red Boogie by director Karp Godina from 1982 was shown, with the director himself joining us for the occasion.
Flashbacks from the Third Symposium at the House of Film 2024
16. 05. 2024Between May 6 and 8, 2024, the 3rd symposium East/West: Borders Through Film and History took place at the House of Film in Gorica. In this edition, a diverse array of lecturers and authors focused on the significance of local film cultures and cross-border film practices, as well as the role of cross-border television co-created by Radiotelevizija Slovenija and Rai Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
Open borders project
11. 04. 2024By examining the development of cross-border cooperation from the end of the Second World War to the present day, the Open Borders scientific project focuses on the reconsideration of European history during the Cold War. The ultimate goal of the project is to challenge the established vision of two separate Europes, "East" and "West", from a new perspective.