Elvira Notari

Biography

Elvira Notari, born Maria Elvira Giuseppa Coda, in Salerno was Italy's earliest and most prolific female filmmaker, made over sixty feature films and about a hundred shorts and documentaries. Her parents was of modest social origins. She was allowed to attend school and pursue an education at the School of Science in literature while dancing as a hobby. In 1902 the family moved to Naples where Elvira met and married the cinematographer Nicola Notari. Together they founded Dora Films in 1903, named after their daughter. Eduardo, born 1903, became an actor, while their second daughter, Maria, stayed out of the film business. Elvira Notari started out making shorts and documentaries about people in Naples, she was a forerunner to the neorealism, was critically acclaimed in Italy and the United States until the arrival of the Fascist regime and Benito Mussolini in 1922. Censorship in Italy came down on Dora films and the company was forced to give up in 1930. It became a must for Italian filmmakers to establish themselves in Rome, which the Notari's was not interested in. Instead they moved to Cava de 'Tirreni, near Salerno, where she retired and eventually passed on December 17, 1946.