Keywords

• Many studies have focused on the transnational nature of contemporary European cinema (Elsaesser 2005) as a consequence of the decline of the nation-state in the present geopolitical scenario (Higson 2000) and of the strengthening of supra-national entities as the European Union (Rivi
• 2007). However
• as Bergfelder (2000
• 2005) points out
• European popular cinema has always been a transnational one
• at least since the Franco-Italian co-production agreements were signed in the late 1940s. From this perspective
• the Italian giallos of the 1970s provide a very interesting case study: in fact
• these films were often co-produced by at least two European countries and were aimed at an international (namely Northern-American) audience. Moreover
• through the themes of travel and tourism (Urry 1990)
• the Italian giallos also depicted
• and to some extent constructed
• some sort of an European identity. The aim of this essay is to examine this supra-national identity and to compare it to the one built by the European genre co-productions of the 2000s