Professor Alberto Zambenedetti will serve as Director of the Cinema Studies Institute effective July 1, 2024 until June 30, 2029.
Professor Zambenedetti is an Associate Professor in the Department of Italian Studies and the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the relationship between people and places, and on the different manifestations of identity politics in Italian cinema. His monograph Acting Across Borders: Mobility and Identity in Italian Cinema (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), investigates how the national film industry has grappled with social and cultural anxieties related to human mobility over the last century. His edited volumes World Film Locations: Florence (Intellect Book, 2014) and Cleveland (Intellect Book, 2016) explore how the cinema has engaged with these cities both as locations and as g/local sites of film production and consumption. Professor Zambenedetti also co-edited two collections on Federico Fellini: Federico Fellini. Riprese, riletture, (re)visioni (Franco Cesati Editore, 2016); and Federico Fellini. Centenary Essays (University of Toronto Press, forthcoming). His scholarship has appeared in journals such as Annali d'Italianistica,Studies in European Cinema, Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, Short Film Studies, The Italianist, Quaderni d’Italianistica, The University of Toronto Quarterly, ACME, and Space and Culture.
Professor Zambenedetti’s film criticism is posted on Gli Spietati. He has curated the Italian editions of Home (Yann Arthus-Bertrand, 2009), It Seems to Hang On (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2015) and Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison, 2016). Professor Zambenedetti also contributed essays to the home video releases of Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi, 2016). Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison, 2016), and Fellini’s Casanova (Federico Fellini, 1976 (2021)). His latest project is Francesco Pasinetti. Soggetti e sceneggiature (Marsilio Editori, forthcoming), a critical edition of the Venetian filmmaker’s unpublished scenarios and screenplays. Professor Zambenedetti teaches a variety of courses on Italian cinema, time and temporality in film, film noir (particularly in the Mediterranean context), and cities and urbanism in film.
Please join us in welcoming Prof. Zambenedetti to his new role.