Dr. Giampaolo Molisina Delivers Keynote at Florida Atlantic University Film Retrospective

Dr. Giampaolo Molisina of the University of Georgia’s Department of Romance Languages, delivered the keynote address at Florida Atlantic University’s Film Retrospective dedicated to Rome on November 6. The event, organized by FAU’s Italian Program within the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature, brought together an enthusiastic audience of graduate and undergraduate students as well as members of the local community.

The keynote, titled “Rome, Cinema, and the Poetics of Time,” explored the representation of time and history in Rome’s film tradition. Through close analysis of film sequences set in the Eternal City, Dr. Molisina examined how cinematic narratives engage with the epistemology of time—how temporal structures shape meaning in urban space, intersect with historical experience, or create new historical dimensions.

This presentation stems from Dr. Molisina's current book project, which investigates the relationship between cinematic chronotopes and the historical imagination of Rome. “It was a fantastic evening with an engaged audience who asked thoughtful questions during the Q&A,” he noted. “The energy in the room reflected a deep interest in the intersection of film, philosophy, and urban history.”

The lecture concluded FAU’s multi-day retrospective celebrating Rome’s enduring role in film. The collaboration highlighted shared strengths between the Italian programs at FAU and UGA—two of the few in the southern United States offering graduate courses in Italian Studies to PhD students.

About Dr. Giampaolo Molisina: Giampaolo Molisina, PhD, teaches at the University of Georgia. Before joining UGA in August 2025, he served as the director of Italian language courses at the Italian Cultural Institute of Lima, Peru, for ten years. His research focuses on post-war Italian cinema and literature, language pedagogy, comparative literature, the history of avant-garde and neo-avant-garde movements, ecocriticism, food studies, and the intersections of Italian and Latin American cultures.

Images provided by FAU following the keynote.