The Cinematic Battle for the Adriatic: Film Festivals and the Trieste Crisis

Abstract

This article analyses film festival practices related to the Trieste Crisis, the diplomatic struggle over the Northern Adriatic borderlands between (capitalist) Italy and (socialist) Yugoslavia (1945-1954). It explores how different forms of festival activities, from film selecting to establishing of film festivals, have shaped conceptions of national identities in the region, by symbolically labeling disputed territories as “national”. Focusing on the way the local populations have been presented in films on this topic that circulated in major film festivals, it demonstrates the changing role of film festivals as playgrounds for political propaganda, from the early Cold War to contemporary post-socialist, nationalist and populist societies.