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The book "Cari Maestri. Da Susanne Bier a Gianni Amelio i registi si interrogano sull'importanza dell'educazione" - is aimed not only for those who have a privileged, immediate and daily relationship with young people, but also for filmmakers who have a fundamental role in the educative universe today - it  goes through the history of the cinema attempting to take in the ways  the three educative universes are represented: school, family and territory.  It is not a collection with the expectations of encyclopedias; but simply a review with the goal of  presenting the main cinema works which have looked at these topics,  films full of reflections and analysis.  The intent behind the book is to give an agile and functional tool to those who are interested in deepening their knowledge in the educative field; those who want to reflect on the educative emergency and on the key figures  of the educative system of the new generations,  starting from the fundamental role of the media, specifically in the cinema world.  This is the reason that convinced Dario E. Viganò to integrate four interviews into the book, interviews given by four Italian and international cinema masters - Gianni Amelio, Susanne Bier, Riccardo Milani and Giovanni Veronesi - who accepted to talk about the educative universe, sharing their personal and cinema experiences, which give an excellent food for thought.   The book is therefore addressed to experts and those who work in the world of  communication and culture, from communication and culture promoters  to various levels of school teachers (especially middle school and high school), but also to pastoral operators, to those who animate the Community halls, the cineforums.

The book focuses on and is inspired by an analysis of the strategies used to encourage Italians to make use of the optional gift-aid scheme "8x1000" which helps support the Catholic Church. Dealing in particular with the television campaigns, starting with the pioneering experiences in the early nineties and gathering experience on the study of the communicative policies of the Catholic Church from the beginning of the sixties, the purpose of the  book is first of all,  to offer the reader the starting points that brought about, in Italy ,the need for an amendment of the Concordat  and the conditions of the Agreements of Villa Madama;  the changes that gave way to the new support system of the Catholic Church, a design that is based on the logics of transparency, freedom and responsibility.  After analyzing   the evolution of the Italian television advertising,  the structural and form changes that have characterized firstly commercial and then social  advertising, the text focuses on the analysis of the television commercial for the "8x1000", based on different methodologies, however generative semiology predominates
(A. J. Greimas);  a look that allows the dynamics of the narrative in various phases that characterize the evolution of the communication of "8x1000" to emerge.   Looked  at, along with the challenges that the Catholic Church is called to deal with in the coming years, concerning the communication strategy related to its financial support, profits and things to ponder are proposed for social advertising, the new communicative proposals for social advertising, in particular the unconventional ways.
The approaches used, originate from different fields, among which the fundamental one is semiotics: a "tool box" necessary for the understanding of the working of the text and its deconstruction in the various levels that it is put together; at the same time a discipline that, used alone, deducts different voids.  Focusing on a commercial, a book or on any other of textual form of cultural importance, the semiotic approach leaves out, for example, the consideration of the  audience, the people who actually live the experience.  Therefore it is necessary to intend semiotics as a "border discipline", with the help of sociology tools.

The mythical era of Hollywood on the Tiber, when the stars of American cinema disembarked from the gangways of Ciampino airport and made their way towards via Veneto ready to be immortalized by the "paparazzi", gave the inhabitants of Rome the illusion of finding themselves actually on set in the open air. These were the golden year of Cinecittà, when the Italian capital was the true capital of cinema and everyone wanted to be Nando Moriconi dreaming of an uncle or an aunt from across the ocean capable of turning their "American dream" into a reality. These were the years of the "Dolce vita", of cinema gossip at the small tables of bars and restaurants, the collective discussions of screenplays and epoch-making arguments in hotel rooms. A period which resulted in the caustic aphorism of Ennio Flaiano: "Coraggio. Il meglio è passato" ('Courage. The best has passed'). These were the years of tabloids, years which the compilers of this volume, Dario E. Viganò and Steve Della Casa attempt to "photograph" by putting together an overall view of the period in question. From Elena Mosconi to Simone Venturini, from Guglielmo Pescatore to Orio Caldiron, from Raffaele De Berti to Alberto Crespi, from Marco Spagnoli to Luca Pallanch this volume sheds much light on the productive system of Cinecittà, on the glitzy productions of the cinema giants, the new directors from "another world", the hero worship which filled the pages of glossy magazines and on the American dream which conquered everything and everyone - from Dino De Laurentiis to Ana Magnani - to the point of constraining some to buy one way tickets to a brighter future. It is a book of photographs which has been developed thanks to the extensive archives of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and Cinecittà Luce but primarily thanks to the irreverent and disenchanted re-reading of a myth, enriched by the anecdotes and nostalgic recollections of the epoch's central characters: from the photography director Giuseppe Rotunno to the poster designer Silvano "Nano" Campeggi, up until the actors and actresses Elsa Martinelli, Lando Buzzanca and Franco Interlenghi and the director Giovanni Fago. A black and white world which no longer exists but which is still capable of igniting the spark of fantasy.

Eccentric teacher, heroic missionary, intrepid detective, ridiculous and loquacious preacher, career-minded and corrupt professor: these are, in their provocative simplicity, some of the images of the priest which the cinema, and also television, have often portrayed. In such a vast number of productions there is also not a lack of criticism concerning certain changes which have taken place in the passage from modern culture to contemporary culture. This volume is takes its origins from a precise circumstance: the Ministry Year, announced by Benedict XVI on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney often referred to as \'Curé d\'Ars\'. The text is divided into two parts. The first is dedicated to tracing the various representations of priests in cinema and suggesting certain polarizations: from ministry activities to social commitments. The second part, however, consists of nine testimonies from Italian film directors, eight grand masters and one promising young director (P.Avati, S.Basso, M.Bellocchio, M.Calopresti, S.Costanzo, A.D\'Alatri, R.Faenza, F.Patierno, C.Verdone). The overall objective of the work is to offer a proposal for the comprehension of certain aspects which are particularly important in the life of a priest.

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Edited by Dario Edoardo Viganò, Professor of Communication Studies at the Pontifical Lateran University and member of the directing committee of the "Centre for Media and Communication Studies 'Massimo Baldini'" of the LUISS Guido Carli University, the 'Dizionario della comunicazione' is much more than a simple dictionary. This volume - originally presented at a round table talk on December 10th 2009 involving, among others, Professor David Forgacs (University College London) and Professor Philip Schlesinger (University of Glasgow) - was published after almost two years of work. "An enormous undertaking" commented Prof. Viganò "..which has involved over 106 authors in producing the volume, professors from over twenty diverse Italian and foreign universities (including La Sapienza University of Rome, the Lateran Pontifical University, LUISS University, the Catholic University of Milan, the University of Pisa, the Swiss-Italian University of Lugano, Stirling University in Great Britain and the Pontifical Catholic University of Buenos Aires), along with other recognized professionals from the world of communication." What makes Dizionario della comunicazione diverse is its internal design which is both modern and functional and involves articulation in terms of "Approaches", "Environments" and "Focus". "Approaches" defines each of the subject's sectors (history, media, economy, semiotics, sociology, psychology, education, theology, ethics, politics): at the start of each of the above there is an introductory essay which provides a general, systematic outline of the various topics as well as defining the theoretical-critical paradigms and the methodological procedures of reference, at the same time offering an outline of the historical developments and principle characters within the subject. "Environments" consists of essays which are highly informative and through which are presented the salient features of the arguments, topics, directions and conceptual junctures which are fundamental in research into the world of communication. Finally, "Focus" offers information tables which represent cultural trends, the movement of opinion, inventions, works, events and diverse data which both enrich and conclude the essays in "Environments". This volume combines scientific precision, methodological rigour and a decided vocation for in-depth examination with expository clarity and ease of consultation. Such features render the 'Dizionario' not only an ideal didactic aid for university students but also a valid, informational instrument for all those who operate within the communications sector.

The most relevant theoretical gain from recent studies in communication consists in the knowledge that the evolution of communication technology, which mankind has throughout history had at its disposal, consists as a product, determining element and agent of profound renovation as much in individual models of cognition as in human societies considered in their entirety. This is the direction which this book takes, starting, necessarily, with a brief analysis of the principle moments in technological progress during the history of mankind and, after individuating the most significant aspects of the anthropological changes following the introduction of certain new media, it proceeds to concern itself with an examination of the particular characteristics of the most modern instruments of mass communication, from photography to cinema, from television to the internet. One of the principle objectives of this volume, far from wanting to furnish a definitive, systematic, theoretical outline, is to indicate a coherent collection of themes which are capable of raising further and profitable investigations and points for reflection, thereby promoting an open discussion to a wider range of participants.

Within its history the Church has assumed diverse strategies of communication according to the historical period, such strategies are accompanied by reflections whose heterogeneity demonstrate the diverse pastoral concerns which, on occasion, arise. One fact, however, remains unequivocal: the primarily systematic and organic attention given to social communication strongly emerges from the Ecumenical Council Vatican II. This volume starts out with the intention of retracing, within the vast international, geopolitical changes and their Italian repercussions, the coordinates of the commitments of the Church in terms of the media world along with the consideration of the Church as a community of disciples to whom the Lord has entrusted His mandate to go forth and announce to the world the beauty of the reign of God. Beginning in the 1960s (until the 21st century) this book follows ten-year periods focusing primarily on the international, geopolitical scene and its reflections within Italian society. Each chapter follows the recognition of such reflections along with the communicative strategies of both the universal Church along with, more specifically, the Church in Italy. Each chapter is then accompanied by a specific focus on a specific event - such as, in the 1960s, the case of the film 'Il Vangelo secondo Matteo' (Eng.trans. 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew') of Pier Paolo Pasolini - or strategic choices of the Church such as, in the 1980s, the foundation of Corallo and successively the radio and television broadcasting of the Italian Episcopal Conference.

The current profile of actuality, the frenetic movement of history, constantly ready to step down in favour of the speed of communication, suggests undertaking an approach to the "homily" question from a communicative point of view. Also because the same homily is a true and proper communicative game of action, a game which has never ended played out between words and their meanings. It would be too simple reducing the question to one of linguistic typology. On the contrary, the modification of anthropological profiles actually suggests that complexity of reconsideration and renewed conscientiousness for a praxis which is as antique as it is decisively fecund. This book aims to analyze the practice of homily within the present context of a mass communication which constantly stabilizes itself as a system of privileged relations. The authors, experts in social communication, starting from this context, investigate the specific criticality of homiletic practices today, in such a way that the very language of homiletics can continue to adapt itself to the current situation both in the exposition of its content and in its effectiveness.

In recent years it has emerged, with ever more evidence, that it is impossible to separate a history of the cinema from a more general history of culture. Aspects and institutions of the cinema sector are revealed to be an integral part of the overall mechanism whereby a social corpus represents the true identity, constitutes the particular memory and consigns meaning to the choices taken. Indeed, in terms of modernity culture assumes a mass dimension and, as a result, an extreme wealth of dynamism and communicative tension: a phenomenon to which the cinema directly contributes. Beginning with this conjunction between the history of the cinema and the history of culture this publication, divided into three volumes, sets out to reconstruct the relationship between the Church and the cinema in Italy, from the origins to the present day.

The community hall, before being considered simply as a structure, is primarily an experience which belongs to the Christian community in its constitutive, missionary nature.  This text edited by Dario Edoardo Viganò constitutes a precious guide to understanding the chosen strategies of the community hall in light of a renewed missionary awareness within the Italian Church.  Tracing the history of the parochial cinema up to the community hall, this volume presents an articulated reflection on the constitutive relations between the community hall and the missionary aspect of ecclesiastical action.  The community hall is presented as a central nexus of cultural initiatives which are often of a high profile but which, nonetheless, suffer a certain social insignificance resulting from the complexity and difficulty of marketing such ideas.  The text focuses on such issues with profound analytical insight and testifies to a renewed strategy for local halls.

In an historical period of radical transformation Pope Pius XII pronounced his two Discorsi sul film ideale (21st June and 28th October 1955), two moments which were anything but secondary to that vast process of pacellian reading and interpretation of modernity which unfolded over a nineteen year pontificate. Fifty years after the circulation of the Discorsi this volume is the result of the necessity of reconducting the attention of cinema and communications experts, as well as historians and cinema spectators to the guidelines which form the interpretative horizon traced by Pius XII in terms of the cinema.

This publication represents the first ever complete account of cinematic work concerning the life of Jesus.  It is divided into three separate parts: the first looks at the theoretical difficulties in narrating events from the life of Jesus - semantic, semiotic and pragmatic difficulties - and suggests a typology of the varied and numerous cinema productions on such a theme from the origins of the cinema to the present day.  The first part, then, can be seen as a form of overview of the diverse representations of the life of Jesus also including those cinematic texts defined as 'parabolic', narratives which, without directly representing Jesus, nevertheless refer to him through metaphor, iconology and parable.  In the second part of the volume there is a collection of film summaries dating from 1895 up until 2004. These film summaries have been edited according to the most complete and analytical methodologies of film criticism.  The third and final part of the volume presents a detailed bibliography which is specific to the theme of Christology and includes articles and papers from both Europe and the United States. The work can be seen as useful for both professional researchers interested in the inter-semiotic difficulties of Christological cinema as well as for those film lovers who wish to explore this fascinating area of cinema history and the insights it provides into Jesus' life.

Communicative competencies are increasingly requested in a growing number of professions related to the world of electricity and electronics and, furthermore, knowledge of psychological, sociological and semiotic processes is constantly more refined.  Within such a context is placed this volume by Dario Edoardo Viganò, in which he collects, with extraordinary competence and clarity, an admirable mass of materials.  The result is a precious, versatile and well-documented publication which provides an overall view not only for analyzing the difficulties connected to communication but also for enlarging prospectives and exploring new horizons.  The work consists of five lengthy chapters and begins with an analysis of the term "communication", a term for which today there exists innumerable definitions (Dance and Larson have counted at least 126), a term which is fastidious in its elusiveness but also a term which is enormously "fascinating". In plain language and with an argumentation which is rich in examples, Viganò traces the history of communication in its salient features and focuses on providing an explicit account of the various models of communicative processes which have been offered in recent years (from Lasswell to McQuail, Shannon to Weaver, from Jakobson to Eco and Bettetini, etc.). The volume ends with an illustration of the basic concepts of the current theoretical semiotic network.  The final result is a book which is both a didactic instrument but also, at the same time, a work which is detailed in notation and original areas for further investigation.

In the first volume of 'Camera Obscura', edited by Dario Edoardo Viganò, there is an analysis of the capacity of the cinema to 'create memories' and to present itself as a reflection of society capable of proposing alternative views of reality. The theme of the second volume, however, is the relationship between the cinema and the imagination under diverse and complementary profiles, beginning with a theoretical examination supported by references to significant feature films.  The volume also includes analyses of the relations between the cinema and comic strips, and between cinema and television.  The volume, furthermore, includes a collection of film reviews complete with other essential data such as film subjects and critical analyses from films selected by the author in order to exemplify the historical narrative.

The issue of memory is of the utmost importance and is at the centre of a growing awareness of the mass media and the cinema in particular; but above all else it is an integral part of our existence.  The cinema presents itself as a "memory machine" and as a mirror which proposes diverse viewpoints, something which enables us to discover something about ourselves, the possibility of observing our memories, both personal and collective, from an alternative point of view.  This volume, edited by Dario Edoardo Viganò, offers four extended essays on the relationship between the cinema and memory according to diverse points of view, documenting such discourses with relevant cinematic quotations during the history of the so-called seventh art.  The volume ends with film summaries complete with essential data, film themes and critical evaluations of films selected by the authors.

Divided into three sections - 'Pontifical texts', 'Acts of the Roman Curia' and 'Documents of the Italian Church' - this volume by Dario Edoardo Viganò provides a chronological development of Church interventions in the cinema and offers a synthetic analysis of each theme for a correct comprehension of the issues involved.  The author has not only collected together those documents exclusively dedicated to the cinema but also sections of other texts relevant to the world of communication and culture in a broader sense.  The reader of this volume has ample opportunity to approach such texts through a number of approaches: chronological, pontificate and thematic by making use of the detailed indexes.

Considered as a completion of 'Il cinema delle parabole vol. 1', this text continues the semiotic analysis of certain cinematic texts from history.  The volume primarily sets out to demonstrate how the narratives of great directors from the past, such as Carl Theodor Dreyer, Robert Bresson, Luis Bunuel and Ingmar Bergman, present themselves as actual parables of the Christian story.  One clear example, for instance, is the curate of Bresson's film who, dying of cancer, can only feed himself on stale bread and wine - an explicit reference to the Eucharist.

The text by Dario Edoardo Viganò and Daniella Iannotta examines one of the most expressive problems of twentieth century philosophy: the contrast between a rigidly rational and instrumental interpretation such as is found in science and the development of a sensibility which is open to wider interpretations such as that found in art and, in particular, in cinema.  The work traces - in the contribution of Daniella Iannotta 'E' rappresentabile l'invisibile? Fondamenti teorici e prassi cinematografica' ('Is the invisible representable? Theoretical and practical fundamentals of film making') - the various stages in the development of contemporary hermeneutics; the paper by Dario E. Viganò 'Bibbia e cinema: un rapporto originario e irrisolto' ('The Bible and cinema: an original and unresolved relation') on the other hand, discusses the question of the cinematic representation of Biblical texts from a semiotic point of view.

Krzysztof Kieslowski, Lars Von Trier, Abel Ferrara, Ermanno Olmi. Sono i registi presi in esame nel primo volume de Il cinema delle parabole. Si tratta di autori i cui film si presentano come traduzioni paraboliche delle narrazioni bibliche. Se nel cinema di Kieslowski la parabola è quella «della prossimità a Dio», in Lars von Trier è decisamente cristologica ed esprime il «riscatto dal nonsenso». È «trasgressiva» la parabola di Abel Ferrara, mentre nel cinema di Ermanno Olmi è il «tempo» stesso a essere inteso «come forma di parabola».

The film 'The 7th Room', by Marta Mészaros,  is dedicated to the figure of Edith Stein and was awarded the OCIC Award at the International Venice Film Festial 1995.  This volume offers two diverse approaches to the film: the first by Carla Bettinelli gathers together and presents the original thoughts of this philosopher beginning with certain films; the second, by Viganò, suggests, starting from a semiotic approach, an interpretation of the life of Edith Stein which, in the film of Meszaros, becomes a parable for the path through seven rooms, an explicit reference to Teresa d'Avila, the last room of which - the Nazi gas chamber - is also a rediscovery of (and return to) the womb (and the earth), a time and place which contains the original and all-embracing mystery of life.

This volume, which includes material from the doctoral thesis in the history of cinema, concerns the relationship between the cinema, as a form of art and as an institution, and the Ambrosian Curia. It primarily concerns the two sides of Church teaching which oscillates between enthusiasm and generous participation and severe criticism, particularly at the moral level.  The history, reconstructed from archive materials, from official documents to declarations, articles, and unpublished materials, begins with the cardinals Andrea Carlo Ferrari, Eugenio Tosi, Ildefenso Schuster, Giovanni Battista Montini, and Giovanni Colombo and follows their most courageous decisions, the most significant stances taken and traces the development of the most salient cinematic episodes which had, as a theatre, the city, including the institution of Coppa Card. Ferrari for educational cinema in 1909, to the first forms of cinema coordination, to the origin of associations and cinema journals, to the development of the cinema experience up until the "case" of 'La dolce vita'. The history of Milan is, thereby, enriched with a new chapter which is both surprising and intriguing and which sheds new light on the history of a Curia which, from the beginning of the twentieth century, wished for a cinema for every church.

The cinema, in its hundred-year history, has dedicated a great amount of attention to the figure of the priest, bringing to light diverse aspects of such a vocation and gathering together numerous insights.  This volume reconsiders the clerical ministry from the suggestions and intuitions developed by the cinema - the means of communication which, more than any other, has influenced the imagination of our century.  In the first part, 'Preti dal "finto" e dal "vero"' ('False and True Priests'), Dario Edoardo Viganò considers certain characteristic elements of the priesthood today, using as an example certain figures rendered famous by the cinema (such as the "country priest" of Robert Bresson or Don Giulio of 'La messa è finita' (English title: 'The Mass is Ended') by Nanni Moretti), and also proposes the testimonies of certain priests who carry out their ministerial work today.  In the second part, 'Preti di celluloide' ('Priests of Celluloid'), Ezio Alberione considers the cinematic fortunes of various priests and individuates the recurring typologies and value judgements of the various representations, a collection of portraits which, as was written in the volume's preface by card.  Carlo Maria Martini, forces the reader or the spectator "to be confronted by a presence on the big screen, and even more so in everyday life, which is never casual or lacking in significance".