The Venice Mostra met for the second year running away from its own building. The ninth edition ran from 30 August to 14 September 1941, again in the Rossini and San Marco cinemas in the city rather than at the Lido’s Palazzo del Cinema — and again, as with 1940, La Biennale’s own later history counts the edition as not having taken place.
Seventy-six Italian titles are listed for the year. Two of them won the festival’s main prizes anyway.
Two prizes, and the people already in this archive
Alessandro Blasetti — the director this series has already placed in 1942 — won the Coppa Mussolini for best Italian film with La corona di ferro, a medieval epic about a crown forged from a nail of the Crucifixion. Its cast reads like a roll call of this series so far: Gino Cervi, already met in 1939; Massimo Girotti, the first name this archive ever attached to this series, from 1942; and Osvaldo Valenti, introduced last year as 1940’s screen villain.
The Coppa Volpi for best actor went to Ermete Zacconi, eighty-three years old, for the title role in Don Buonaparte — a Tuscan parish priest offered a cardinal’s hat by his nephew Napoleon and choosing his parishioners instead. Valenti appears in this one too, in a supporting part. Two films, one actor working through his ninth decade on stage, and the same man who played 1940’s villain turns up in both of 1941’s prize-winners.
The actress in the frame
Opposite Valenti in La corona di ferro is Luisa Ferida, twenty-seven that year. Four years later, on 30 April 1945, she and Valenti — partners on screen and off — were shot in the same Milan street on the same day, by partisans who held them responsible for collaborating with a Fascist torturer during the Republic of Salò; the charge against Ferida specifically has since been disputed. This series noted last year that the parts Valenti played at Cinecittà and the year that killed him were «five years apart and, in the end, not so different in kind». Ferida’s death on the same day, in the same street, is the same story told twice.
The veteran
Zacconi belongs to a different generation than anyone else in this series. Born in 1857, the son of touring actors, he was already a leading man of the Italian stage by 1888, playing Hamlet and Ibsen while the directors and actors named elsewhere in these pages were not yet born. Don Buonaparte caught him at eighty-three, seven years before his death, still working, still winning.
Where they were made
La corona di ferro was shot on location at Ronciglione, north of Rome; Don Buonaparte at the Pisorno studios in Tirrenia, on the Tuscan coast. Neither used Cinecittà, the studio at the centre of this series’ account of 1942 and 1943: Italian cinema in 1941 still had more than one address.
The films, and the day each one comes round again
Both prize-winners now have their own page. Neither date is fully certain: the sources agree only on the month, not the day, so both are published on the first of that month with the warning in place rather than a guessed day.
- La corona di ferro, Alessandro Blasetti — released September 1941, exact day not documented
- Don Buonaparte, Flavio Calzavara — released September 1941, exact day not documented
The people of 1941, and the days we mark them
Two of the six pages below are new; the other four — Blasetti, Cervi, Girotti and Valenti — already had theirs from the years this series has covered before. The dates come from Treccani’s Enciclopedia del Cinema and Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, checked against a second independent record.
- Ermete Zacconi, actor, title role in Don Buonaparte — born 14 September 1857, Montecchio Emilia · died 14 October 1948, Viareggio
- Luisa Ferida, actress, La corona di ferro — born 18 March 1914, Castel San Pietro · died 30 April 1945, Milan
- Alessandro Blasetti, director of La corona di ferro — born 3 July 1900 · died 1 February 1987
- Gino Cervi, actor, La corona di ferro — born 3 May 1901, Bologna · died 3 January 1974, Punta Ala
- Massimo Girotti, actor, La corona di ferro — born 18 May 1918, Mogliano · died 6 January 2003, Rome
- Osvaldo Valenti, actor, in both prize-winning films — born 17 February 1906, Istanbul · died 30 April 1945, Milan
Details
- Italian titles listed for 1941: 76 (the list compiled by Stefano Vigolo)
- Venice Mostra, 1941: 30 August – 14 September, held in the Rossini and San Marco cinemas, not at the Lido; the edition is counted by La Biennale as not having taken place
- Coppa Mussolini for best Italian film: La corona di ferro, directed by Alessandro Blasetti
- Coppa Volpi for best actor: Ermete Zacconi, for Don Buonaparte
- La corona di ferro: shot on location at Ronciglione; cast included Gino Cervi, Massimo Girotti, Elisa Cegani, Luisa Ferida and Osvaldo Valenti
- Don Buonaparte: shot at the Pisorno studios, Tirrenia; cast included Ermete Zacconi and Osvaldo Valenti
Where you can still stand
- Cinecittà, Rome — not used for either 1941 prize-winner, but the centre of the years either side
- Palazzo del Cinema, Lido di Venezia — the hall neither the 1940 nor the 1941 festival used
- Italian cinema in 1940 — the year before, and the festival’s first wartime edition away from the Lido
- Italian cinema in 1942 — the peak, ninety-six films
- Italian cinema in 1943 — the year it broke
Do you know more?
On this page we have published what can be seen and what we were able to verify. About most of the seventy-six Italian films of 1941 almost nothing is written anywhere, and the exact release day of even a prize-winning film can be lost. If you know something — a photograph, a programme, a poster, a memory told in your family, or a date we have got wrong — write to Sofia, who looks after these pages.
Write to Sofia
or send a message on WhatsApp
Please start your message with the title of this page, so it reaches the right file. Every contribution is checked against independent sources before it goes on the page, and we always say where a piece of information came from.
Frequently asked questions
Was the 1941 Venice Mostra an official edition?
Not by the festival’s own later reckoning. Held away from the Lido, in the Rossini and San Marco cinemas in Venice, the 1941 edition — like 1940 and 1942 — is counted by La Biennale as not having taken place, even though real prizes were awarded at the time.
Which films won at Venice in 1941?
La corona di ferro, directed by Alessandro Blasetti, took the Coppa Mussolini for best Italian film. Ermete Zacconi won the Coppa Volpi for best actor for Don Buonaparte.
What happened to Luisa Ferida and Osvaldo Valenti?
Both appeared in La corona di ferro in 1941. On 30 April 1945 they were shot together in a Milan street by partisans who held them responsible for collaborating with a Fascist torturer during the Republic of Salò; the charge against Ferida has since been disputed.
Who was Ermete Zacconi?
A stage actor born in 1857, already a leading man of Italian theatre by the 1880s. He won the Coppa Volpi for best actor in 1941, at eighty-three, for the title role in Don Buonaparte.
Sources
- La Biennale di Venezia, festival history — the 1941 edition held away from the Lido, in the Rossini and San Marco cinemas, and counted as not having taken place.
- Italian Wikipedia, voce 9ª Mostra internazionale d’arte cinematografica di Venezia (1941) — the prize list: Coppa Mussolini to La corona di ferro, Coppa Volpi to Ermete Zacconi for Don Buonaparte.
- Italian and English Wikipedia, voci sui due film — cast, production, filming locations.
- Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, voce Ermete Zacconi; Treccani, Enciclopedia del Cinema, voce Luisa Ferida.
- The Library of Congress Name Authority File — the birth and death years behind the anniversary pages linked above.
- The list of 1941 titles on which this article is based was compiled by Stefano Vigolo and sent to the editorial desk on 12 September 2026.