The Italian film critic, historian, and filmmaker Adriano Apra, currently a visiting lecturer in the Chair Of Italian Culture, will deliver a lecture (approx. 50 mins, in English) on “The Unknown Italian Cinema,” the Cinema of the Mussolini era which we are surveying in the ongoing retrospective, “Before Neo-Realism: Italian Cinema 1929-1944,” organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Formerly an editor of Filmcritica and from 1966 to 1970 editor-in-chief of Cinema & Film, Adriano Apra is currently president of Rome's well-known cinematheque, “Filmstudio 70.” Together with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Apra edited a series of film books for publisher Garronti: Apra personally translated into Italian the “Essays Of Jean-Luc Godard,” “Semiology Of Film” by Christian Metz, and “What Is Cinema?” by Andre Bazin. His own books include “Il Cinema Di Andy Warhol,” “Neorealismo D'Appedice,” “Italia In Bianco E In Nero: Cinema Italiano 1929-1944,” “Il Melodramma Nel Cinema Italiano,” and the forthcoming “Allessandro Blasetti.” In addition, Apra has directed one full-length fiction film, Olympia Agli Amici, and one feature documentary, Girata A Roma; he also played the lead role of Othon in Jean Marie Straub/Danielle Huillet's Othon.