Abstract

The distribution of films, in the Italian industry, was regulated from the 1930s by a contratto-tipo di noleggio, a standard exhibition contract that was stipulated by the trade associations and supervised, in different ways, by the state. Based on primary sources, this article reconstructs the evolution of the exhibition contracts signed in a particularly heated period that was the years 1946-1953. Further, it uses the discussions of the contracts published in trade magazines to conceptualize, through the political and economic category of neo-corporativism, the interaction between public and private actors, as well as the co-optation of business interests within the policy-making process, that characterizes Italian film industry.