Cecilia Mangini: Italy’s First Female Documentarian

Italy’s first female documentary filmmaker, her films were gritty and unpolished, but they brought attention to the plights of marginalized people.

Born in Mola di Bari on July 31, 1927, Cecilia Mangini relocated with her family to Florence at the age of six, and then moved to Rome in 1952. There, she worked for a film club where she made personal and professional connections that would lay the foundation for the course of her life.

In the late 1950s, she partnered with Pier Paolo Pasolini for a trio of short documentaries that spoke of the poor living in desolation in the shadow of the industrial revolution.

The 1958 film, “Ignoti alla città” (Kids in the slums of Rome), documents the children of poor families living on the outskirts of Rome as they spend their days getting into mischief and searching for items of value in garbage dumps. An outspoken advocate for the poor, Pasolini wanted to show the other side of Italy's stereotypical image of its 1960s post-war boom with a portrait of the harsh reality of young people in the forsaken countryside.

Two years later, Mangini returned to her birth region of Puglia for the docu-drama, “Stendalì suonano ancora” (They Still Play Stendalì). The 11-minute film perfectly depicts the quintessential “Old Country” with its elderly draped in black, stone houses and traditional hymns. A reenactment of the ancient rite of funeral lament that is no longer practiced, the film opens with the ringing of the town’s bells to announce a local has died. Women then gather around the open casket as they weep, wail and act out their grief with particular movements of the head and fluttering their hands while holding white handkerchiefs. The lament is sung by actress Lilla Brignone. The words express the emptiness the mourners feel, and their prayer for the deceased to look after and protect them.

Watch “Stendalì suonano ancora” on YouTube..

Concluding the trio is “La canta delle marane,” a 1961 portrayal of youngsters frolicking in a river on a hot summer’s day. The film was inspired by Pasolini’s 1955 novel, “Ragazzi di vita” (Poor Boys). The “marane” of Rome are ditches and various small rivers that cross the city. The film takes place under the Mammolo Bridge on the banks of the Aniene river and captures the innocence of childhood as young boys run in and out of the water, splashing around.

“I owe Pasolini a lot, both for the scripts and also because he was considered so dangerous — so frequenting him I was exposed to risks that were very useful to me,” she told the New York Times in a 2020 interview. Having gained notoriety during her collaborations with him, Mangini received funding to direct her first solo effort, the 1964 documentary, “Essere donne” (Being Women). The film is among the first cinematic documentations of women in Italy based on income, social standing, psychology and traditional ways of life.

Watch “Essere donne” on YouTube...

Mangini was married to fellow filmmaker Lino Del Fra, who she met during her first job at the film club. The two collaborated on many projects. One of the most important was a film they were working on in 1965 about the war going on in North Vietnam. However, United States-led bombing campaign became so intense, the couple was ordered to leave. The documentary was considered a project that would remain unfinished. Then one day, half a century later, she discovered two boxes of negatives in her cupboard that consisted of photos and notes from that trip.

“I remember things through photographs, because I am losing my memory,” Mangini told the New York Times. “Sometimes I forget works, sometimes I forget dates, people’s names — you can’t remember everything.”

The photographs helped her remember “time, space, emotions. Everything.” She took those negatives and codirected a documentary about them titled, “Due Scatole Dimenticate” (Two Forgotten Boxes). She presented the film at the 2020 International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Mangini passed away in 2021 at the age of 93. The Academy Museum in Los Angeles paid tribute to her in March with a screening of her films, including her last work, “Two Forgotten Boxes.”

Mangini’s documentaries are often featured in retrospectives of her work. Pasolini’s novel, “Ragazzi di vita,” was recently translated into English by Ann Goldstein, the translator of Elena Ferrante's novels, and is titled, The Street Kids. Follow the link below to purchase it on Amazon..

-Written by Jeannine Guilyard for Fra Noi Magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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