Abstract

The ’50s were a crucial decade for the reorganisation of labour in the Italian film industry and, in particular, for the institutional recognition of below-the-line qualifications. The trade press, thus, becomes one of the primary sources for reconstructing the relationships between workers and production structures in order to investigate the work cultures of mid-management production. One of the main protagonists of this phase is the Unione Nazionale, Associazioni Cinetecnici (Unac) and the Associazione Direttori Cineproduzione (Adc). From its foundation in 1951, the Adc imposed itself as an essential part of the process of recognition and organisation of labour and workers, whose official instrument of public intervention was, for four years, the magazine Cineproduzione Italiana (1955-1959), which is the focus of this essay. The first part of the article contextualises the relationship between workers, trade unions and professional associations, investigating the magazine as an instrument of the category self-representation. The second part highlights how Cineproduzione is an important and hitherto little explored paratext through which we can infer the discourses, expressive strategies and value systems that were in use among workers.