The series Albania was produced between 1939 and 1943, the years of the Italian occupation of the Balkans
TIRANA, July 2 – Italy’s Istituto Luce and its historical archives, a unique source for information about Italy in the years of the fascist regime and about the international
context of fascism including East Africa and Albania, has been inscribed to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
“The Collection constitutes an inimitable documentary corpus for understanding the formation process of totalitarian regimes, the mechanisms of creation and development of visual material and the life conditions in Italian society. It is a unique source for information about Italy in the years of the fascist regime, about the international context of fascism (including East Africa and Albania, but also well beyond the areas occupied by Italy during fascism, especially as regards the period of the Second World War) and about mass society in the 1920s and 1930s,” says UNESCO.
Istituto Nazionale L.U.C.E., founded in 1925, was the main source of information, education and mass propaganda in Italy during fascism. Its heritage is made up of about 3.000 newsreels, 3.000 documentaries and 300.000 photographs.
The series Albania was produced between 1939 and 1943, the years of the Italian occupation of the Balkans. Its contents extend from inventory number AL1 to number AL7698, and it is composed of nitrate cellulose films and acetate cellulose films, with formats that range from 24x36mm to 9x12cm.
L.U.C.E. established specific departments related to strategic subjects. Examples are the Italian Oriental Africa Department (1935- 1938), which supported the attack to Ethiopia, and produced a corpus of images larger than any produced before by any other European countries in Africa, and the Albania Department (1939 ‐1943), which documented the occupation of the Balkans.
In the Luce archive Albania is featured in thousands of pictures, documentaries and video-shooting ranging from views of Albanian towns, to King Zog’s wedding. The Istituto Luce is the first and the only that has brought in the Albanians memory the wedding of the King Ahmet Zog with Geraldine.
The Albanian central film archive says it holds an important part of the Italian historical productions of the Luce institute that accounts for 10 percent of its collection.
