Discrimination and Desire: Italians, Cinema, and Culture in Post-War Sydney

This thesis begins with the arrival of thousands of Italian immigrants in Australia during the early stages of Arthur Calwell’s post-war mass immigration program. Their arrival was greeted with widespread anxiety reflecting cultural, racial, religious and economic tensions. The post-war assimilationist policy, which privileged Anglo-Australian culture, language and identity, assumed that Italians and Italian culture would be absorbed into Australian society. These assumptions were challenged through the presence of the new symbols of italianità on the streets of Sydney, as film, design, fashion and cuisine made their mark on society. The screening and reception of Italian film is an important and often overlooked cultural marker at the centre of a period of dynamic cultural exchange in Sydney between 1948 and 1971. This thesis argues that Italian cinema and the diaspora reshaped the nature and culture of post-war Sydney, and in turn, the perception of Italian identit

«PUTTING ITALY BACK ON THE MAP» DIASPORIC CINEMA AUDIENCES IN POSTWAR SYDNEY

In April 1961, the Sydney screening of Federico Fellini’s latest film La dolce vita (1960) broke all box office records, and the associated scandals attracted the attention of Sydney cinemagoers and the migrant and local press. Over two hundred thousand Italians had migrated to Australia by this time, creating a local demand for Italian film. This article examines the central role that film plays within the social and cultural lives of diasporic audiences and their perceptions of change to show the importance of cinema, not only in cultivating and maintaining cultural and national identity, but in establishing a sense of italianità in 1960s Sydney