Abstract

This article investigates film popularity in post-war Italy. Our focus is the box-office data and discourses around national and foreign productions in the exhibitors’ trade press Bollettino/Giornale dello spettacolo. This will be read against exhibitors’ programming strategies and films’ circulation patterns, using Rome as a case study. This analysis provides a new understanding of what types of films were available to audiences, and the choices exhibitors made when compiling cinema programmes. We explore any correlation between the way in which film nationality is discussed in Bollettino/Giornale dello spettacolo and the circulation of films across the city. We question the exclusive financial dimension of film popularity in relation to nationality within the trade journal, in light of geographical distribution and accessibility to audiences