She was born in Salerno on February 10, 1875, to Diego Coda and Agnese Vignes. Elvira had the chance to study – she attended an all-girls high school (scuola normale). When she finished school she and her family moved to Naples, where she worked as a milliner.

She met Nicola Notari who would become her husband on August 25, 1902. Elvira worked along with her husband, helping him with photo and then film colouring and, very soon, they would start producing films. It was the beginning of an era, with a wave of groundbreaking productions, experimental projects, film studios embarking on new possibilities. All of this in a city like Naples, known for its receptiveness and for being a hotbed of innovation and excitement in the field of film-making.

Elvira and Nicola had three children: Edoardo, Dora and Maria. In 1909, they established in 91 of Via Roma, a film lab for printing, titling and colouring of motion pictures – the “Dora Film Factory of films for cinematographs and sound films”, where “cinematography was performed”. Dora Film would soon become a production house and, along with Lombardo Film and Partenope Film, one of the most famous companies in Naples – amongst the capitals of cinema in Europe, in Italy second only to Turin.

Short films, Naples and Capri views, parties… But Elvira wanted more, so she started working on full-length, feature films. The roles were well separated – Nicola was in charge of the technical side, while Elvira took on the screenplay and direction. Their son Edoardo, who -with the pseudonym Gennariello- worked as an actor in most of the films, would become one of the central characters in her scripts. Elvira hired really young actors who would go on to become great character actors, such as Tina Pica and Carlo Pisacane – the future Capannelle. Yet, her films also featured commoners, people picked up on the street; with them, Rosella Angioni, Edoardo’s teacher, using the stage name Rosé Angioni, becoming one of the most famous amongst Notari’s actresses. Elvira was stubborn, in her family she was known as the “General” – she was bossy and she would never give up, no matter how big the obstacle. She demanded from her actors a simple, understated performance – a modern approach compared to the style of that era. Her nephew Armando Notari said: «as a film director my aunt was really strict, a stickler indeed. She wouldn’t hesitate to retake scenes she didn’t like […], she required real tears […] and for this reason, before hiring the actor, she would inquire about their family history. […] for example, if she had learned that an actor was an orphan, well, she would talk to him about his father».

Carmela la pazza (1911), Figlio del reggimento (1915), Carmela la sartina di Montesanto (1916), La Medea di Portamedina (1919), Gennariello il figlio del galeotto (1921), Trionfo cristiano (1930) – these are some of the titles of the almost 60 feature films she directed, plus about a hundred short films. Among the entire production of the Notari family, three films are currently archived at the Cineteca nazionale in Rome – E' piccerella (1922), 'A santanotte (1922), Fantasia 'e surdate (1927). Her works are like pop novels: Elvira loves Matilde Serao (with whom, however, she never got along) and Carolina Invernizio. Her plots are full of sensuality, desire, love, poverty and the dream of a different life. There are women who experience love triangles, doomed to die in a sort of final catharsis; usually positive mothers who suffer for their children. It is melodrama as well as something more – gritty realism, scenes from real life, images of bodies martyred by poverty and ignorance. The world she depicted was the Naples of the poorer classes: fishermen’s houses, street urchins; the tragedy of those who have nothing.

For Elvira, as a woman, it wasn’t easy to be a director – yet in early cinema female presence was significant. They were not only editors or film colourers – a role that seemed to suit them since «film editing is like sewing», as Giuliana Bruno said. They were not only actresses, but also directors, producers, and acting school principals.

Censorship had come down on Notari productions – the law tried to remove passion and reality from the films, while fascist censorship banned madness, suicide and the neapolitan dialect. However, Elvira would not give up. Dora Film would even land in the USA, where Dora Film of America was established on 7th Avenue, New York City. Elvira’s films, while not beloved by critics and high-brow culture, were a huge commercial success in southern Italy and among the Italian American community.

Eventually, Elvira had to surrender to the widespread of “talkies” and to the new methods of film-making and the new cinematographic industry, which had nothing to do anymore with the pioneering craft work she belonged to and that gradually excluded women from the production process. In 1930, Dora Film shut down.

In 1940 the Notari family returned to their home in Cava, where Elvira passed on June 17, 1946.


Translated by Cecilia Chiarelli.