Amateur films as geo-historical documents: Traditional fishing through a tourist’s lens

This article results fro m a geographical “archival mining” of an amateur film archive. It examines the cine-tourist gaze in the amateur films of S. Ceppi Badoni, particularly focusing on her documentation of the Tonnara di Scopello in Sicily during the 1960s. Through two films, Mattanza a Scopello (1963) and Sicilia 1962 - I. Lettere da Scopello (1962), Ceppi Badoni captures the life and practices of Sicilian tuna fishermen, depicting the mattanza (traditional tuna harvest method) with a distinct, outsider perspective. These films, shot during a time of socio-economic transformation in Italy, are valuable ethnographic records of a fading tradition and serve as reflections of the filmmaker’s tourist and bourgeois gaze. This differs from professional ethnographic cinema, as they offer a unique vernacular narrative that reveals more about the filmmaker’s experiences as a tourist than the mattanza itself. Employing an ecocritical and geo-historical approach, this analysis uncovers environmental discourses embedded within both films, offering insights into how private filmmakers interpreted and mediated cultural and environmental narratives. This research emphasizes the potential of amateur cinema as a rich yet underexplored medium for geographical and environmental studies, opening new methodologies for analyzing private cinema to understand cultural practices. The article also argues for the potential use of visual material for didactic purposes, among various other applications.