Luigi Chiarini

Arguably more important than his contributions as director (5 films) or scenarist (11 titles which include work for De Sica and Rossellini) are the roles Luigi Chiarini (1900-75) played in Italy as theorist, editor, festival director and film school founder. During the Fascist era, in 1935 he started the Centro Sperimentale, a place where aspiring movie makers could learn their skills.A library there named after him is the biggest film research facility in the country. Beginning in 1937 with Bianco E Nero and later with Rivista Del Cinema Italiano, Chiarini ran two of the more important cinema magazines and was one of the first to write essays on and intellectualize in depth about Italian film. After serving on the juries of both the Venice (1937) and Cannes (1961) film festivals, he was made artistic director of the Venice festival in 1963 but was let go five years later, partly because of what was seen as his authoritarian personality and partly because of political conditions during the tumultuous year of 1968. In 1961 he was made chair of the first study program in Italy specifically on film, at the University of Pisa.