[KineJapan] Roberta Novielli

[Markus Nornes]

This is incredibly saddening news. Shocking. Roberta was always and ever an intense ball of energy. We communed over our love for Himatsuri. Conversations were always wide ranging and swinging between tall tales, academic frustrations and joys, movies movies movies and gossip, always. This is a serious loss to Japanese film studies and programming, especially for Italy. Roberta wrote/edited many books, including a general history and works on anime, violence, literature, and directors like Kawase and (this fall) Tsukamoto. 

She was also a good citizen, volunteering her time to organize conferences, edit book series and a website on Asian cinema (asiamedia.unive.it), and also work with governmental film committees at local and national levels. 

Roberta’s role as a conduit between Japan and Italy was particularly important because she was the point person for Japanese filmmakers showing at the Venice Film Festival, and she programmed director centered retrospectives in various locations in Europe for her entire career. She interpreted for them and took care of them. And she brought what she learned from these lengthy and repeated encounters into her teaching and scholarship. I actually included an anecdote about Roberta’s interpretation in my Cinema Babel. It was about a controversy she found herself in when Kitano Takeshi made an offhand comment that implied affinities with fascism—as interpreter, she felt she was in a tough spot and her translation choices made international news. 

Roberta was clearly running full speed ahead right up to her passing, and was racing to produce a multi-lingual collaboration with Tsukamoto by the next Venice Film Festival. 

Just last week we were exchanging email about retirement…….

Markus





> On Jul 22, 2026, at 4:18 AM, Aaron Gerow via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
> 
> It was with great shock that I head of the death of Roberta Novielli, the wonderful Italian scholar of Japanese cinema. I was emailing her just a few weeks ago. She died suddenly on July 20 at the age of 62. 
> 
> Roberta taught at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and was the author of many texts and catalogs on Japanese cinema, including Storia del cinema giapponese and Animerama. She also helped found the Ca' Foscari Short Film Festival, one of the few successful festivals run by a university. Roberta helped organize many Japanese film events in Italy—I was fortunate to be invited to a couple—and was working on a book with Tsukamoto Shinya when she passed away (that’s why she emailed me). 
> 
> It’s far too sudden and I can’t quite process it. Roberta was extremely important to Japanese film studies. We have lost a great colleague. 
> 
> https://www.unive.it/web/it/15165/articolo/8545
> 
> 
> 
> Aaron Gerow
> Alfred W. Griswold Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and Film and Media Studies
> Acting Chair, East Asian Languages and Literatures
> Yale University
> 320 York Street, Room 108
> PO Box 208201
> New Haven, CT 06520-8201
> USA
> Phone: 1-203-432-7082
> Fax: 1-203-432-6729
> e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
> website: www.aarongerow.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> KineJapan mailing list
> KineJapan at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/kinejapan

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/kinejapan/attachments/20260722/5940875d/attachment-0001.html>