This volume creates awareness among spectators about the differences between the past and the present, the importance of understanding the past-present relationship, and the reasons behind reconstructions that distort the past in films about Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Luigi Andrea Berto is Professor of History at Western Michigan University (USA) and teaches classes on pre-modern History and on Film and History. His research focuses on medieval Italy and the Mediterranean, with a special interest in the use and the representation of the past in the modern period.

Introduction 1. Invaders and heroes 2. Inspiring models of independence, unity, and identity 3. Leftist social and political topics in 1960s and 1970s movies 4. Video right-wing agendas 5. Medieval Muslims and Christians, and modern agendas for the Middle East 6. Medieval Christians and Muslims, and wishful thinking during the war in Iraq (2003 - 2005) 7. The Black Death, existentialism, old and new fears, and private matters 8. Women, brotherhood, equality, and the land of opportunity