Get ready for a very special Extraordinary Woman session on Sunday, Nov. 15, starting at 11:30 am at the Revue Cinema. We are presenting it in partnership with the Revue Cinema and the University of Toronto’s Department of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese and Latin American Studies.

The subject: Italy’s first woman film director, Elvira Notari.

We will be screening the 2025 documentary Elvira Notari: Beyond Silence. Film director Valerio Ciriaci will attend the screening and take part in a Q&A after the film. (1hr 34 min)

RESERVE YOUR PLACE and read more about the event on Eventbrite: CLICK HERE.

Tickets are by a voluntary donation (suggested $16), but free if you wish.

A Panel Discussion: 

The event will begin with a panel discussion at 11:30 am with Professors Alice Maurice, Damien Pollard, Luca Zamparini and Dr. Teresa Valentini, who will discuss the historical context, the participation of women in film at the time and the impact when sound arrived in the movie-making business.

Three feature films, two short documentaries and a handful of fragments are all that remain of the filmography of Elvira Notari, Italy’s first woman film director. But while her life remains largely a mystery—she left behind no letters or diaries, and only a few photographs survive—her work has now become the focus of a renewed interest that is lifting her from obscurity.

A leading figure in the golden age of Neapolitan silent cinema, Elvira created some 60 feature films that, weaving the passions of popular drama with unflinching depictions of urban life, captivated audiences from Naples to the Little Italies of America.

Undermined by Fascist censorship and family strife, she withdrew from filmmaking in 1930. Her name slipped into silence, and most of her work was lost. Today, 150 years after her birth, Elvira returns to center stage thanks to the efforts of scholars reclaiming her place in history and artists revisiting her legacy through new forms.

Interlacing historical memory with contemporary rediscovery, Elvira Notari: Beyond Silence offers a living portrait of a cinematic pioneer whose vision continues to resonate in the present.

In Italian with English Subtitles.