California Italian Studies

Analyzing two ENI documentaries from the 1960s, Oduroh (1964) and Uomini del petrolio (1965, Oilmen), this article considers the historical and contemporary logics shaping Italy’s extractive relationship with Africa. Framed by the recent revival of Enrico Mattei’s legacy in Giorgia Meloni’s government current “Mattei Plan for Africa,” the essay reads these corporate films as crucial interscalar devices. The films reveal ENI’s strategy of using developmentalist narratives and specific visual representations to naturalize its largescale interventions. Oduroh shows the making of African subjects suitable for extractive work, while Uomini del petrolio documents the physical reshaping of African landscapes for resource exploitation. Together, these films exemplify what the paper identifies as the dual processes of cultural and material transformation necessary for establishing extractive operations in Africa. The article contributes to discussions of petro-modernity, the African Anthropocene, and racial capitalism by showing how ENI’s simultaneous construction of extractive infrastructure and developmentalist narratives produced new ways of imagining Africa’s territories and futures.