This collection brings together three international and contemporary plays that each denounce violence against women, alongside interviews with the creators and practitioners who brought them to life. With interviews with writers, directors and producers, who discuss the conception and staging of their plays, their hope is to de-glamourize the staging of violence, to give voice to the survivors of gendered violence, and to create awareness and empathy within the audiences. Little Stitches (London, 2014): four short pieces by Isley Lynn, Raul Quiros Molina , Bahar Brunton and Karis E. Halsall on the issue of Female Genital Mutilation as seen from the point of view of by-standers, health professionals, women who support the practice and, finally, survivors. 'Kubra' (Sydney, 2016) by Dacia Maraini, features a young female protagonist who was subjected to FGM/C as a child, and now brings her case to court. Rape Trial (Rome, 2018), adapted for theatre by Renato Chiocca from the international award-winning documentary of the same title made for Italian state television in 1979, shows how attitudes toward sexual violence, and judicial procedures, tend to turn rape survivors from accusers into accused, in court and in everyday discourse.

This collection brings together three international and contemporary plays that each denounce violence against women, alongside interviews with the creators and practitioners who brought them to life. With interviews with writers, directors and producers, who discuss the conception and staging of their plays, their hope is to de-glamourize the staging of violence, to give voice to the survivors of gendered violence, and to create awareness and empathy within the audiences. Little Stitches (London, 2014): four short pieces by Isley Lynn, Raul Quiros Molina , Bahar Brunton and Karis E. Halsall on the issue of Female Genital Mutilation as seen from the point of view of by-standers, health professionals, women who support the practice and, finally, survivors. 'Kubra' (Sydney, 2016) by Dacia Maraini, features a young female protagonist who was subjected to FGM/C as a child, and now brings her case to court. Rape Trial (Rome, 2018), adapted for theatre by Renato Chiocca from the international award-winning documentary of the same title made for Italian state television in 1979, shows how attitudes toward sexual violence, and judicial procedures, tend to turn rape survivors from accusers into accused, in court and in everyday discourse.

What can two countries at the edge of Europe with very different histories, people and climates have in common? When brought together as they are in this book, probably for the first time, Sicily and Scotland prove to have some surprising similarities as well as more predictable differences. Both once independent nations, they are now part of larger nation states, but each still retains a deep sense of independent cultural and political identity rooted in its separate history and language which is explored in literature and film. Both favoured destinations of tourists, they have proved immensely attractive to travel writers, here represented by studies of Scottish travellers writing about Sicily. Finally they have both been great emigrant nations, sending their people across the globe to settle in faraway places, although their experiences in their new nations were very different. This book focuses on these three major strands of comparison and contrast: literature and film, travel writing and emigration. It explores the work of some of each nation's most famous writers (Sciascia, Lampedusa, Scott and Stevenson) and some well known and acclaimed films by directors of the stature of Visconti, Tornatore, Forsyth and Loach. It considers the string of Scots who, before it was discovered by tourists, made the long and unfamiliar journey to Sicily culminating in Patrick Brydone's Tour Through Sicily and Malta which proved to be immensely popular and went through many editions after its first appearance in 1773. Finally it provides a comparison of the experience of Sicilian and Scottish emigrants through a general survey of Scottish migration, the particular case study of Sicilians in Australia, and one man's personal account of the lives of his Sicilian and Scottish ancestors in America. The writers of this book present a fascinating comparison of these two places which have been much studied but almost never brought together before.

The book is the first to examine contemporary Italian cinema from a socio-political perspective, drawing on the expertise of film scholars, political activists, and directors, including the Oscar-winning film-maker Giuseppe Tornatore. This innovative volume examines the nature of filmic representations of social, economic and political issues in Italian cinema over the past fifteen years. The book adopts a unique, cross-disciplinary approach, featuring essays not only by film scholars but also by political activists and trade unionists. Its aim is to reconnect Italian film scholarship with the concrete realities of issues such as immigrant welfare, workers' rights and grass roots political activism in contemporary Italy. The volume's sections focus on the following themes: Workers and the Workplace; Gender, Sexuality and Social Identity; Migration, Multiculturalism and Integration. Each section is preceded by a detailed introduction examining key films, and the fifteen individual essays in the volume analyse influential films including Giuseppe Tornatore's La sconosciuta, Paolo Virzi's Tutta la vita davanti, Cristina Comencini's Bianco e nero, Ferzan Ozpetek's Saturno contro, Carlo Mazzacurati's La giusta distanza and Roberta Torre's Angela. The book also features an exclusive 6,000 word interview with the Oscar-winning director Giuseppe Tornatore, who discusses the socio-political influences that have emerged in his cinema. Contributors to the volume include William Hope, Flavia Laviosa, Luciana d'Arcangeli, Susanna Scarparo and Bernadette Luciano.