Southern borderscapes: spaces in Apulian cinema

The first regional film commissions were established in Italy in 2007, which resulted in the decentralization of film production away from Rome on a national scale. Within this context, Apulia became an increasingly popular filming location, due to its rich archaeological heritage and striking natural beauty. This rise in visibility promoted a tourist-oriented image of the region. As Italian and foreign film producers flocked to Apulia, the Apulia Film Commission adopted an approach that gradually bolstered the presence of local directors, enabling them to build a more authentic and complex image of the region. With Apulia becoming a focal point, local filmmakers sought to reveal and foreground important facets of Apulian space, long regarded as a cultural crossroads. This paper aims to show how space, environment, and landscape serve as structural narrative elements in Apulian cinema. To achieve such an objective, two films will be analysed: Edoardo Ponti’s La vita davanti a sé (‘The Life Ahead’, 2020) and Pippo Mezzapesa’s Ti mangio il cuore (‘Burning Hearts’, 2022). Although these films explore different narrative trajectories, they both exemplify the main approaches to production within the Apulian film industry, embodying its local and international dimensions.