Cinema and film analysis as educational system for active learning in today’s social and cultural crisis: Take a lesson from Vittorio De Sica, the master of Neorealism

Neorealism proposed social, ethical, political and above all educational reflections by building, through cinematographic work, a direct relationship with Italy which was in crisis, bombed, poor and disoriented after the second World War. In particular the director Vittorio De Sica as director was able to grasp the gaze of children, victims of both families and communities. This article proposes a study on how cinema and the lesson of Neorealism can be functional to the pro-fessionalizing path of future educators through a qualitative-quantitative survey based on a training experience in the University environment aimed at 200 students of L-19 in 2022. Finally, this proposal of an analysis of the film as an edu-cational system in the current era has a phenomenological approach, offering a first phase towards the formalization of cinema as a pedagogical third and for university teaching in order to have impact on modern society.