On the night between April 7 and 8 Vittorio Martinelli passed away in Bologna. His death leaves a huge void among all those who knew him as both a brilliant man and historian. His unconventional way of looking at cinema and his ability to discover archive rarities, his astounding knowledge of the Seventh Art made him a world-wide famous and acclaimed historian.

Il Cinema Ritrovato, the whole community of film archivists and historians and Cineteca di Bologna gather around his family and friends, are well aware that his lesson will continued to be spread and be fruitful for a very long time.

Vittorio Martinelli (Naples, 1926 – Bologna, 2008) Film historian, co-author with Aldo Bernardini of the 21-volume filmography on Italian silent cinema. Alone or in collaboration with others, he wrote a wealth of monographs dedicated to directors (Genina, Gallone, Guazzoni,Roberti) and actresses (Bertini, Menichelli, Borelli, Jacobini, Leda Gys)including the one “Silent Divas”, as well as countless essays and articles on specialised cinema reviews. He also wrote and compiled filmographic studies on American cinema (L’eterna invasione), as well as German (Da Caligari a Lola-Lola), French (Cuor d’oro e muscoli d’acciaio), Austrian (Lucy Doraine alla conquista dell’Italia) and English (Una frequentazione rarefatta).