On Saturday September 18th 2010, I will be addressing “Kiss Kiss Kill Kill: A Symposium on the Forgotten Spy Film of Cold War Europe” at the University of Hertfordshire. My paper, “Chronicles of Lead: Transatlantic Flow in 1970s Italian Cop Thrillers”, will consider the poliziesco filone‘s significance as both a space of transnational exchange and an expression of postmodern bewilderment in the ever-contested period of Italian history now known as the anni di piombo, or “years of lead”. You can read the abstract here.

“Kiss Kiss Kill Kill: The Graphic Art and Forgotten Spy Films of the Cold War” is a forthcoming exhibition, symposium and series of film screenings celebrating the unique graphic art and forgotten spy films of Cold War Europe. It is presented by the  University of Hertfordshire Galleries (UH Galleries) and the Hertfordshire Film Consortium.

Centred on the kitsch designs produced across Europe during the Cold War, “Kiss Kiss Kill Kill” is the first exhibition of a collection of newly-restored posters from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, the USSR, East and West Germany and the UK. The different graphic styles in the East and West provide an expansive portrait of European taste, national identity and politics of the period with the brash super kitsch of Italian cinema posters juxtaposed compellingly with the lo-tech golden age of non commercial Czech film poster design. Registration details can be found on the event’s website.