We Will Set You Free: Representations of the ‘Antislavery Argument’ in British and Italian Missionary Films (1925–1939)

By comparing two missionary films, the British Livingstone (1925) and the Italian Abuna Messias (1939), this study identifies a striking similarity and some differences between the British and the Italian colonial agendas. These two visual narratives are distant in time and belong to two different imperial histories and imaginations; however, one scene in the earlier British film is reproduced almost identically in the later Italian one. This study argues that the shared content underlines not only the Italian fascist government’s political aim to explain colonialism and warfare with the justification of fighting human trafficking, but also the intent to create an image of anti-slavery struggle on the British model. This work sheds new light on how Abuna Messias furthered the role of the Catholic Church and the missionary agenda in Italian fascist colonialism.