Looking for new aesthetic models through Italian-Yugoslavian film co-productions: Lowbrow neorealism in sand, love and salt

This essay outlines some key issues regarding the post-WWII co-productions of Yugosla- via and Italy. In particular, it emphasizes the role that such ventures played in introducing new aesthetics into 1950s Yugoslav cinema, through the incorporation of features of Ital- ian neorealist comedies and melodramas. I argue that, because many of these projects were Italian runaway productions, they enabled the Yugoslav film industry to acquire pro- fessional know-how, and, above all else, helped Yugoslav cinema to develop new styles and genres. In the case of neorealist melodramas, this process was made possible by the com- plex nature of neorealism itself, insomuch as this was a broad cinematic phenomenon that consisted not only of the small number of films that are included in the neorealist canon, but also of popular genre films. Italian popular cinema was highly exportable in the late 1950s, most notably to countries that already possessed an interest in this nation’s popular culture, including West Germany and the Yugoslav Federation. Accordingly, a productive case study is provided by Sand, Love and Salt (Harte Männer, Weiße Liebe, František Čáp, 1957), a German-Italian-Yugoslav co-production featuring international film stars that was modeled on neorealist melodramas and comedies, and helmed by a Czech direc- tor who worked in Yugoslav popular cinema.