Feminist Observation: The Case of Un processo per stupro ( A Trial for Rape , 1979)

This article offers an account of the landmark work Un processo per stupro (A Trial for Rape, Italy, 1979), an observational documentary of a trial for gang rape made collectively by Maria Grazia Belmonti, Anna Carini, Rony Daopoulo, Paola De Martiis, Annabella Miscuglio, and Loredana Rotondo. Shot on video in the town of Latina, just outside Rome, in 1978, it was broadcast nationally twice on Italian television station RAI 2 in 1979, reaching some twelve million people. This article probes how and why the filmmakers contested sexual violence and its treatment within the legal system by adopting the observational mode, a form of filmmaking that departs significantly from the subjectivity, intimacy, and participation that characterize many feminist nonfiction practices of the 1970s.