Intertel; 18; The New Italian
- Series
- Intertel
- Episode Number
- 18
- Episode
- The New Italian
- Producing Organization
- National Educational Television and Radio Center
- Westinghouse Broadcasting Company
- Contributing Organization
- Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/512-n872v2dc6q
- NOLA Code
- ITTL
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- Description
- Episode Description
- General Background of Italy: There are more people in Italy than the country can adequately support. What to do with his surplus is the major problem facing the government. More than 40 percent of Italys population live in the south. Italy is a country divided by an economic wall. In the north, centers of industry are concentrated. In the south, the economy is mostly agricultural and not as profitable. It is in southern towns like Ferrandina that villagers flock to the post office seeking word from friends and relatives in the north about jobs in the industrial regions. In the south, the farmers live off land, growing olives and wheat for olive oil and spaghetti. Whatever is left, the farmer sells. But like many villagers in Ferrandina, where one out of every five residents leaves to go north, the people in the south are no longer content to live just for the food they grow. The letters from friends, relatives, and communications through newspapers, radio, movies, and television have influenced the southerners to look outward instead of inward. That influence has prompted a desire to live as well as one can and has resulted in an ever-increasing exodus of southern Italians to the north of the country. Episode Description: THE NEW ITALIANS turns its cameras to the southern village of Ferrandina in the province of Mezzogiorno and follows a young farmer, Casare, one of the many Italians migrating to the north to seek a better way of life. The episode pays special attention to the change occurring in Italy and the nations effort to attract industry to the rural and labor-surplus regions of the south. Cesare, whose day starts at 4 AM, earns about $330 a year most of which is derived from surplus vegetables the farmer grows in his small plot of land. Typical of many in this village of Ferrandina where eleven percent of the 9,000 people are unemployed Cesare keeps in touch with friends and relatives in the north who have left to better themselves. The success of his friends prompts Cesare to make the decision to leave for the northern industrial center of Turin. In Turin, Cesare finds he has a better chance of getting a job through his friends and relatives rather than through the labor unions. At one of the state agencies that Cesare visits, Professor Zaccone of the Italian Institute for Industry and Social Research relates that the problem for Turin is not finding jobs for the labor forces, but finding housing in the city of more than a million people. In Turin, she notes, only two percent of the labor force is unemployed. The climb up the economic ladder for Cesare rests largely upon his employment at Italys largest private enterprise, the Fiat Company in Turin. To get the job with Fiat, Cesare must undergo exhaustive physical examination, must be under 35 years of age, and must be within the 30 percent quota of employees from the southern regions. One third of Fiats 30,000 applicants fail to pass the physical exam each year. On his own merits Cesare gets the job. He begins to learn a new way of life and to save to reunite his wife, two children and his grandparents. Unlike Cesare, the episode points out there are an occasional few who return to the south to find factory jobs and the same rewards offered in the north of Italy. Cameras now shift back to Mezzogiorno and document the agrarian reform and industrial development that is being encouraged and instituted there by government and business. As the estate of the Marchesa of Berlingieri, the viewer visits a medieval domain transformed from a wasted 15,000 acres under absentee ownership to a number of small working farms. Under the governments special fund for southern Italy, more than three and a half billion dollars have been spent to settle farmers and construct dams for irrigation. But even with diversified farming, the people still need industry to attain decent living standards in Italys south. The episode traces the discovery of methane gas in Ferrindina, the governments decision to pipe it elsewhere, the peoples determined fight to keep the gas, and the ultimate decision to keep two-thirds of the gas in the village to power any industry that may locate in the area. THE NEW ITALIAN is a 1963-64 Intertel production by National Educational Television and Westinghouse Broadcasting Corporation. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Series Description
- Intertel, a dramatic breakthrough in the dissemination of ideas and cultural exchange through television, was conceived in November 1960. Five television broadcasters in the four major English-speaking nations joined to form the International Television Federation, to be known as Intertel, the first such international organization. The participants were Associated Rediffusion, Ltd. of Great Britain, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and for the United States, the National Educational Television and Radio Center and the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company. Intertel produced on a bi-monthly basis hour-long documentaries on important world topics, inaugurating a global television production agency dedicated to the creation of programs of substance and meaning. John F. White, President of NET, called Intertel more than a fusion of the creative talents of the organizations involved in producing television programs of outstanding merit. It is a step forward to world understanding, he added. I believe that the exchange of documentaries, while of great significance in the vastness of the mutual understanding in it can foster, is but the first step in a regular exchange of all forms of programming. Donald H. McGannon, President of WBC, hailed the new organization as a pool of the technical and creative ability and knowledge of all the groups which will extend the international horizons of television in all aspects. This is the first practical step, after years of talking and hoping, toward the creation and use of international television for cultural exchange and an effective weapon for peace. By having observers examine topics far removed from their everyday assignments, Intertel gives viewers a fresh viewpoint. The founder members indicated that by dubbing these programs in foreign languages and making them available to all nations, they hoped television companies in Europe, Asia and South America will eventually join this unique project. The supervisory committee for the United States programming segments consists of Mr. McGannon and Mr. White; Richard M. Pack, WBC Vice President Programming; and Robert Hudson, NET Vice President for Programming. Intertel came into formal being November 14, 1960, in a special meeting in Vancouver, B.C., and the culmination of plans for such an association which has been under way for a long time. John McMilliam of Associate Rediffusion, was named contemporary Coordinating Officer at that time. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Broadcast Date
- 1964-08-01
- Broadcast Date
- 1964-07-06
- Asset type
- Episode
- Genres
- Documentary
- Topics
- Public Affairs
- Rights
- Copyright National Educational Television & Radio Center & Westinghouse Broadcasting Co., Inc. July 8, 1964 (in notice 1963)
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Credits
-
-
Assistant Director: Leone, Dominic
Director: Alexander, Michael
Narrator: Julian, Joseph
Producer: Krumgold, Joseph, 1908-1980
Producer: Alexander, Michael
Producing Organization: National Educational Television and Radio Center
Producing Organization: Westinghouse Broadcasting Company
Writer: Krumgold, Joseph, 1908-1980
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2023552-1 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 16mm film
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: B&W
-
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2023552-2 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 16mm film
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: B&W
-
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Identifier: [request film based on title] (Indiana University)
Format: 16mm film
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- Citations
- Chicago: “Intertel; 18; The New Italian,” 1964-08-01, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 18, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-n872v2dc6q.
- MLA: “Intertel; 18; The New Italian.” 1964-08-01. Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. June 18, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-n872v2dc6q>.
- APA: Intertel; 18; The New Italian. Boston, MA: Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-n872v2dc6q