Cecilia Mangini and Alina Marazzi: an italian story

Cecilia Mangini e Alina Marazzi: An Italian Story, considers the work of the two directors who, in two different periods and discusses the ways in which their work relocated and shifted the stereotype of women as subjected to ‘male gaze’. The article focuses on the image of Woman (with a capital W) on the screen as well as at the level of production.Essere donne (Cecilia Mangini, 1965) and Vogliamo anche le rose (Alina Marazzi, 2007) offer two personal views on Italian feminist movements between 1960 and 1979. The first documentary gives voice to the women forced into the margins of the economic boom, marked by a manufacturing machine that cancels the boundaries between work time and leisure. Workers interviewed by Cecilia Mangini express their views on a system that strives to ensure interest of the owners feeding a reassuring female model. However, the documentary by Alina Marrazzi returns, through the stories of three women, the fundamental achievements of collective struggle, such as laws on divorce, abortion, contraception and rape. Barricades give back to women the role of historical agents, transforming the image of themselves and their bodies.