From 10 February to 30 April 2025, Elvira 150 celebrated Italy’s first woman director in Naples with a unique programme of restored films, live music, talks, and exhibitions. A collective tribute to Elvira Notari on the 150th anniversary of her birth.
Elvira 150
10 February – 30 April 2025
Films with live music, talks, exhibitions
Naples celebrates Elvira Notari (1875-1946), the first woman director in Italian cinema
On the 150th anniversary of the birth of Elvira Coda Notari, Naples paid tribute to her with an unprecedented programme: screenings of restored films, live music, documentaries, an exhibition, talks with scholars, and a study day, held across several venues from 10 February to 30 April 2025.
Elvira 150 was promoted and funded by the Comune di Napoli and the Ufficio Cohousing Cinema, conceived and organised by Parallelo 41 produzioni with CSC-Cineteca Nazionale, in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna, Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, Archivio di Stato di Napoli, Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, and hosted in symbolic venues such as Casa del Contemporaneo – Sala Assoli, Teatro Bolivar, Multicinema Modernissimo.
Curated by Antonella Di Nocera for Parallelo 41, with the collaboration of Simona Frasca for the musical direction and of Anna Masecchia and Gina Annunziata for the study day, the programme received the patronage of Regione Campania.
A portrait restored to the city
Born in Salerno in 1875, Elvira Notari lived and worked in Naples between 1906 and 1929. With her production company Dora Film, she was the first woman director and the most prolific author of Italian silent cinema, making more than 60 feature films and hundreds of shorts and documentaries.
Her work, rooted in popular culture and rich in location shooting drawn “from life”, anticipated neorealism, blending realism and fiction, pathos and formal freedom. Opposed by Fascist censorship, it found an enthusiastic audience in the American Little Italies, becoming a point of reference in the collective imagination of emigration.
A widespread and widely shared programme
Starting on 10 February, the symbolic date of Elvira’s birth, the programme presented all the surviving works, restored by Cineteca Nazionale, with live musical accompaniment. These included:
- È piccerella (1922), opening night at the Modernissimo with original music by Maestro Enrico Melozzi
- Fantasia ‘e surdato / L’Italia s’è desta (1927), with Dolores Melodia and Michele Signore – Sala Assoli
- ’A santanotte (1922), in its world premiere with original music and texts – Teatro Bolivar
- Festa della Madonna della Libera a Trevico, Festa della S.S. Assunta in Avellino, Napoli sirena della canzone, the three documentary shorts – Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella, with music by the students
- Two films from the Neapolitan silent era to frame the period: Vedi Napoli e po’ mori (Perego) and Assunta Spina (Serena), with new live accompaniments.
Talks, research and memory
Among the events was the study day “Il mondo di Elvira Coda Notari”, hosted at the Sala degli Ex-Cataloghi Lignei of Università Federico II, with contributions from Maria Coletti, Giuliana Muscio, Elena Correra, Pasquale Scialò, Paolo Speranza, Fausta Base, Simona Frasca, Andrea Mazzucchi, Massimiliano Gaudiosi, Anna Masecchia and Gina Annunziata, alongside musical contributions by Michele Signore, Antonella Monetti, Paolo Montella, Andrea Laudante and Federico Odling.
As part of the programme, there were also morning screenings for schools, coordinated with the Ufficio Scolastico Regionale, and a photographic exhibition staged at the Archivio di Stato di Napoli with materials from the Correra and Martinelli collections, curated with Cineteca di Bologna.
A new look at Elvira
The programme also launched a cycle of projects and reflections that will continue throughout the anniversary year, culminating in the Lectio Magistralis by Giuliana Bruno (Harvard University) at the Accademia di Belle Arti in December 2025.
“Elvira Notari, a filmmaker ahead of her time, brought into her work a piece of our city, the gaze of an era. She worked with courage and dedication and devoted her life to cinema.”
(Gaetano Manfredi, Mayor of Naples)
“There is a whole world around Elvira – of connections, encounters, works – that seems to have awakened in order to place her where she deserves to be in the history of Italian and world cinema.”
(Antonella Di Nocera)
Four evenings with Elvira’s films
10 February 2025 – Multicinema Modernissimo / On the occasion of Elvira Notari’s birthday, the programme opened with a screening of È piccerella (1922, 63′), in the restored version by Cineteca Nazionale, with original music by Maestro Enrico Melozzi. The evening was introduced by Antonella Di Nocera and Anna Masecchia, with remarks by the Mayor of Naples Gaetano Manfredi.
17 February 2025 – Sala Assoli / An evening dedicated to two works from 1927: L’Italia s’è desta (9′) and Fantasia ‘e surdato (41′), digitised by Cineteca Nazionale. The film concert was performed by the duo Dolores Melodia (voice and accordion) and Michele Signore (violin and plucked strings), as part of a musical project by Passo 16. Introduction by Simona Frasca.
27 February 2025 – Teatro Bolivar / World premiere of the new live score for ‘A santanotte (1922, 61′), restored by CSC – Cineteca Nazionale (2008). The ensemble film concert featured original music by Michele Signore and texts by Fama, Russo, Sollo and Ziccardi. Performed by Cecere, Frasca, Melodia, Maisto, and Signore himself. Introduction by Gina Annunziata and Simona Frasca.
3 March 2025 – Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella / Three short films between documentary and memory were presented with live music by students of the Conservatorio, conducted by Maestro Elio Martusciello: Festa della Madonna della Libera a Trevico (1923), Festa della S.S. Assunta in Avellino (1923) and Napoli sirena della canzone (1929). Introduced by Antonella Di Nocera and Gina Annunziata.
