Esplorare, filmare, conquistare. L’Africa di celluloide tra politica, etnografia e spettacolo esotico (1908-1928)

Since the late Nineteenth century, the boundaries between exoticism and allegedly scientific pur- poses in the representations of Africa became blurred in the books, pictures, and films shot by European (and Italian) explorers and filmmakers, who crafted discourses instrumental to colon- izers’ agenda and desires. Images and narratives about the untamable and dangerous flora and fauna, Big-game hunting, and safari played a crucial role as tools of imperial administration as well as in the diffusion of a biased knowledge of the colonial world. This paper sheds light on the politicization and spectacularization of the film representations of the exploration of the Italian colonies, by focusing on two partially neglected case studies. The first one deals with the films stemming from the expedition of Salvatore Niccolini in Eritrea (1919-20), the study of which will allow us to rethink the chronologies of the involvement of the State in colonial film propaganda. The second case study deals with the several films that sprout from the expedition of the Duke of Abruzzi in Somalia (1928-29), whose analysis will reveal the strong politicization of the image of the Duke as well as the seamless re-use of the same raw footage to craft different films. These examples clearly point out the fact that scientific practices and spectacularizing of the figure of the explorer and of the African landscape were fully entangled in the bolstering of Italian/fascist imperial ambitions.