Envisioning the Revolutionary South: The Soviet-Italian Coproduction Life is Beautiful (1979)

stefano pisu

2022-01-01

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Abstract

This essay examines the case of the film "Life is Beautiful" (Grigori Chukhrai, 1979) in the context of the history of Italian-Soviet cinematic co-productions during the Cold War. The contribution explores the film’s initial conception and the economic, financial and political issues that impeded its creation via documents from the Russian State Archive for Literature and Art (RGALI) in Moscow and the State Central Archive (ACS) in (Rome). In addition, it considers the development of the screenplay, and how its most sensitive elements were refined, particularly the theme of terrorism. I argue that the material possibilities of Soviet film industry and the Italian distribution networks made these two into natural allies in the historical circumstances of the late 1970s. This case study also reveals in broad terms the extent to which East-West film cooperation was possible in and of itself.