Tokyo – Italian cinema will take centre stage at an event scheduled in Tokyo on Friday, 17 April at 6:30 PM.
The Italian Cultural Institute will host the lecture “Screens of Desire: The Queer Gaze in Italian Cinema,” delivered by Giuseppe Balirano, professor at the University of Naples “L’Orientale.”
Balirano will explore the ways in which Italian cinema has historically represented same-sex desire—often subject to censorship, conveyed through ambiguous allusions, encoded in nearly imperceptible details, or relegated to the margins of the narrative.
Building on this tradition, the lecture will offer a multimodal reading of the queer gaze, focusing on framing techniques and on how images, bodies, and relationships are staged on screen.
In particular, the talk will examine how, in Italian cinema from the 1970s to the present, specific visual and narrative choices have contributed to making queer desires, bodies, and relationships visible.
Drawing on examples from selected works by Italian directors, the conference will reflect on the evolving dialogue between established cultural models and new forms of visibility.