Abstract

The article analyzes the experiences of Italian women editors as examples of the complex interplay between modes of resistance and acceptance developed by women professionals in a male-dominant film industry. Retracing the evolution of the profession of editor from the silent era to the 1970s, the article navigates the genealogies of Italian women who worked in the cutting room. These women used their creative and professional skills to overcome obstacles imposed by a film industry that otherwise reproduced entrenched patterns of gender and class discrimination. In particular the case of Ornella Micheli, a professional editor who worked on more than sixty films between the 1950s and the 1970s, reveals a practitioner who fitted into the mechanisms of her working environment, but also developed her own personal strategies to affirm her professional status and ensure the continuity of her career.