Italian silent cinema

On 11 November 1895, Filoteo Albertini applied for a patent on the Albertini Kinetograph, and between 1909 and 1916, the Italian silent cinema represented a major force in world cinema before the hegemony of Hollywood was firmly established. Albertini produced the first feature film with a complex plot - La presa di Roma ('The Taking of Rome', 1905) - a treatment of a patriotic theme, the annexation of the Eternal City to the new Italian state in 1870. The next year, a major production company, CINES, was founded, which enabled Italian films to capture the world market for a brief period. While Italian silent films reflected a variety of genres - Roman costume dramas, adventure films, comedies, filmed drama, even experimental, avant-garde works - the industry's most popular product was the costumed film set in classical antiquity. The period's greatest director was Giovanni Pastrone (1883-1959), whose majestic silent classic Cabiria (1914) established the popularity of the feature film with its depiction of the Second Punic War and influenced D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916).