Details of the 2012 Cambridge Film Festival will appear here shortly

A rare opportunity to see the only film starring legendary Italian stage actress Eleonora Duse, "Cenere" (Ashes) is based on the novel by Nobel Prize-winning Sardinian author Grazia Deledda. The story of a peasant mother who sacrifices everything for her son, it is notable primarily for Duses extraordinary performance. Her understated movements and emotional naturalism went against the emphatic and histrionic acting style of the diva film - one of Italy's premier genres in the 1910s - documentary footage of which will be shown beforehand in Peter Delpeut's "Diva Dolorosa" (Dolorous Diva).

The films are being screened as part of the conference 'Desiring Divas: the Diva in Modern Italian Culture', taking place at Downing College, and will be followed by a round table discussion among leading academics in the field and a Q & A with the audience.