Italy Movie Tour 
Cinecittà Babylon: so was born the Italian film industry
It is been aired yesterday on Rai 1 the documentary film Cinecittà Babylon: Sex, drugs and black shirts by Marco Spagnoli, produced and distributed by Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
The birth of the Italian film industry
The film is important because it tells the Hollywood dream of fascism and the birth of Italian film industry.
The film uses archive images from the rich Archive of the Istituto Luce and the Experimental Cinematography Center. Through this material the documentary traces the decade in which they were born Cinecittà and the Experimental Center of Cinematography, as well as the productive relationship between the American and Italian cinema and collaborative efforts. The story is based on archival documents, but it takes a special light through the memories of Italian actresses.
From this interweaving of archival materials and memoirs of protagonists of the time it comes out a very original product.
The relationship between cinema and power
But, beyond the historical value, the film is interesting because it tries to explore the eternal relationship between sex and power, creativity and excesses, between art and vices. In a clear reference to the famous book by Kenneth Anger, Hollywood Babylon, it tries to tell the story of the Italian cinema of the 30s and 40s, bringing together for the first time archival materials, films, photographs and testimonies in a new point of view between history and gossip in the shadow of the birth of what will be years after the so-called Hollywood on the Tiber.
The film is also a tribute to the beauty, talent, courage and femininity of a series of cinema stars. We see and hear tell their careers and their intimate unforgettable divas and sometimes unjustly forgotten as Clara Calamai, Maria Denis, Elsa De Giorgi, Carla Del Poggio, Doris Duranti, Luisa Ferida, Isa Miranda, Alida Valli. Cinema stars often today unjustly forgotten in their being protagonists of a male cinema and often misogynist.
In the film, the actresses are interpreted by their very young colleagues who today attend the Centro Sperimentale. In particular: Silvia Alù (Carla Del Poggio), Eleonora Belcamino (Maria Denis), Eliana De Marinis (Isa Miranda), Marta Jacquier (Alida Valli), Eleonora Mancini (Elsa De Giorgi), Marta Manduca (Doris Duranti), Martina Querini (Clara Calamai), Gloria Radulescu (Luisa Ferida).
The film, written and directed by Marco Spagnoli, has used the artistic advice of Enrico Lucherini and that historic of Gian Piero Brunetta.
