«O forse non è così». Narrazioni e contro-narrazioni nel cinema campano contemporaneo.

The research investigates how contemporary Campanian cinema constructs, consolidates, or deconstructs the image of Naples and its liminal zones, by setting dominant narratives and counter-narratives in critical tension. Cinema is conceived as a device of power and knowledge, capable of shaping and simultaneously destabilizing the collective imaginary. The title O forse non è così (“Or Perhaps It Is Not So”) evokes precisely this suspension—the awareness that every image of Naples bears within itself a dual nature, at once revelation and artifice. The study draws upon field theories and on a film analysis method inspired by Jacques Aumont, privileging an evidential and reflexive gaze on the texts. From a corpus of approximately one hundred and fifty films (2010–2025), nine “cardinal” works have been selected: four aligned with dominant narratives and five belonging to counter-narrative practices. The aim is to construct a conceptual cartography of the regimes of visibility that organize the gaze upon Naples—a field of forces in which myths, archetypes, and stereotypes coexist with filmic experiences capable of restoring to the city its plurality of times, voices, and gazes.