The politics of queer(ing) nostalgia in contemporary Italian LGBTQIA+ films

This article explores the politics of nostalgia in contemporary Italian LGBTQIA+ cinema, focusing on Nuovo Olimpo, Stranizza d’amuri, and Le favolose. By looking at the ways that nostalgia is evoked in the characters and in the audiences in each of these films, the article argues that a political divide can be found between those films that queer nostalgia (as an action) and those that implement a queer nostalgia (noun). This distinction allows us to understand the political and somatic differences between the act of queering nostalgia and queer nostalgia; while both underscore queer theory’s ability to disrupt heteronormative structures, one does not necessarily serve those queer communities not only that these stories are about but that have afforded an alternative anti-normative path on which these theories rely. While all three films are based on real events, all three films have LGBTQ main characters, and all three films use reflective nostalgia (see Svetlana Boym’s The Future of Nostalgia), it is the trans narrative around which Le favolose is built that shows nostalgia, and even traumatic nostalgia, as a pathway toward collective healing and resistance against transphobic systems of oppression.