FAU Professor Stephen Charbonneau Reviews My Florita in Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies

Dr. Stephen Charbonneau, Professor of Film and Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University, has published a review of the film My Florita in the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies. 

In the review, Dr. Charbonneau describes My Florita as a collaborative portrayal of Italian American life in Palm Beach County, informed by research emerging from FAU’s Comparative Studies program. The film was created by Manuela Filomena in close collaboration with co-writer and co-producer Vincenza Iadevaia, both of whom are students in the Comparative Studies program.

 Here is a relevant passage from the review: 

In truth, this is a collaboratively generated self-portrait of Italian Americans in Palm Beach County, energized by research coming out of Florida Atlantic University’s (FAU) comparative studies Ph.D. programme. Thus, the core of the film features a close partnership between Filomena and her co-writer and co-producer Vincenza Iadevaia (both of whom were enrolled in comparative studies at FAU). In fact, this regional deep dive stands as a cinematic complement to a 2023 oral history conducted by Iadevaia focusing on Italian Americans in the university’s backyard (Iadevaia 2023).