Image-Worlds. A brief history of corporate cinema

Since the early twentieth century, there has been an intimate relationship between the most prominent industrial enterprises and the cinematic gaze, resulting in countless films over time. Its authors are notable figures in international film history, yet they remain relatively unknown to most people. They traveled extensively to document manifold production processes, primarily to capture the tones and timbres that contributed to shaping the corporate identity of their clients. However, these filmmakers have, in no small measure, embedded in their films the essence of every meaningful aspect of modernity. To such a degree, they have created a vast gallery of real «image-worlds» condensing a sizeable portion of the «short century». A varied constellation of the visible destined to offer us valuable traces of historico-economic, techno-scientific, geo-socio-political and ideological-cultural horizons to be widely examined. Across this wide-ranging panorama, an alternation of rapid juxtapositions and more consistent analyses was required in the attempt to surface, within such a mare magnum, the most emblematic traits projecting diverse interpretive routes.