[KineJapan] KineJapan Digest, Vol 98, Issue 15

Wed Jul 22 08:10:47 EDT 2026

 Many thanks, Aaron, for sharing this sad news.
I am also deeply shocked and saddened. Roberta was an inspiring teacher and scholar, full of energy, ideas, and enthusiasm. I was fortunate to be her student at Ca' Foscari, and thanks to her support and professional connections, I was able to travel to Japan on a scholarship to conduct research on Japanese cinema. Thanks to her, I was also able to attend the Venice Film Festival on several occasions and interview many Japanese filmmakers.
She was also very generous with her time and expertise; just at the end of last year she served as an external examiner for my PhD thesis and wrote an impressive report for the viva committee.
One of my first readings as a student was her book on the history of Japanese cinema in Italian, which I still consult today. 
I still cannot believe she is no longer with us. We have truly lost a driving force in the field, particularly in Italy.

My heartfelt condolences to her two daughters, family, friends, and colleagues.Che riposi in pace.

Alejandra

    En miércoles, 22 de julio de 2026, 08:16:15 GMT+1, kinejapan-request at mailman.yale.edu <kinejapan-request at mailman.yale.edu> escribió:  

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Today's Topics:

  1. Roberta Novielli (Aaron Gerow)
  2. Re: Roberta Novielli (Markus Nornes)

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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:18:16 +0900
From: Aaron Gerow <aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: [KineJapan] Roberta Novielli
Message-ID: <17CA7777-8C55-49E3-9BE4-86178E3590AD at yale.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain;    charset=utf-8

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

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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2026 09:15:52 +0200
From: Markus Nornes <nornes at umich.edu>
To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: Re: [KineJapan] Roberta Novielli
Message-ID: <6B6E041F-2F5E-4244-AA7A-DFFBF1D36033 at umich.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

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

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