Fidotta spoke about his winning project, his experience at Concordia as an international student and the continuing evolution of his work.
Where are you from? What made you decide to come to Concordia for your PhD?
I'm from Siracusa, a town in Eastern Sicily, Italy. As often happens in these circumstances, I came to Concordia almost by chance. I had had the opportunity to meet a few faculty and students in Europe at various conferences before starting the program. These fleeting encounters gave me a glimpse of a vibrant, engaged community. Eventually my now-supervisor Luca Caminati told me more about the program. He captivated me within a matter of minutes. Retrospectively, it was a great choice. I arrived in Montréal in summer 2016.
Can you say a bit about the aspect of your research that won you the Stand-Out Research Award?
The project explores the Italian film production that occurred in the former colonies of East Africa during the Fascist era, with particular emphasis on the so-called Italian empire established after the conquest of Abyssinia (current-day Ethiopia) in 1935. Most of that history is poorly known even in Italy. The republican governments ruling the country after World War II actively worked to wipe out the colonial past from Italy's identity and culture. Consequently, I’ve had the chance to bring attention to a variety of archival and film materials never before uncovered. You can imagine how enthusiastic I was to find, watch, and study all these materials that no one had ever bothered to look for before.
What are some of the historical and political implications of this research?
The project has shed light on the structural involvement of the film industry in the Fascist colonial project. It’s made the long-denied collaboration between the government, the colonial party, and this film community clear. This work has also become a part of ongoing public debate on the legacy of colonialism. This is a discussion that has been made possible only in recent years by the work of other committed scholars. Of course, this means we are all also trying to get at the ways political repression is still affecting Italian society today.
What are your plans for your work in the immediate future?
As it happens, I'm leaving the country in a few hours for eight months of fieldwork in Western Sicily. I continue working with the same spirit of the Fascist empire project. I intend to keep doing research that contributes to the understanding of cinema as a political instrument.