Virgil Darelli "Provincial cinemas"
Provincial cinemas have long been among the favorite places for Italians to spend their free time. Different from urban cinemas, they were often non-commercial, politicized, multifunctional and temporary. The volume reconstructs its history, so far neglected, from its origins to the boom in media consumption, taking Lombardy as a case study and paying particular attention to three historical periods: the birth of the permanent cinema, the period of fascism dominated by parastatal bodies such as the Opera nazionale del dopolavoro (OND), the modernization of the premises in the early fifties. Adopting the approach of New Cinema History, which combines quantitative analysis and a microhistorical gaze, the treatment moves from the center to the periphery and vice versa, and winds through national decision-making centers (government, parties, trade associations) and small and medium-sized municipalities using a very rich apparatus of data and archival sources.