Film Reviews • 161 Finding the Mother Lode explores well-tilled California Italian history in new ways, especially in its novel approach to story telling, which examines how Italians shaped California while simultaneously speaking to the larger immigration narratives. The ilm covers lesser-known topics including the role of immigrant women and how immigrant communities change through time. Interviews with descendants of early pioneering families along with those of Sicilian isherman lend authenticity to the ilm and help to link the historical narrative to the experiences of ordinary people in the contemporary moment. A criticism: Because the ilm addresses multiple themes in several different locations and situations, the viewer experiences small interruptions and abrupt transitions in the narrative. These breaks in the narrative are typically inter- spersed with comments from scholars that serve to clarify the contextual information needed to weave together the different stories being presented. Other minor criticisms include the use of captions that are sometimes unreadable against a landscape’s back- ground or that lash by too rapidly for viewing. As a geographer, I appreciate the use of California maps as the ilm transitions from one community to another; maps of Northern Italy, in addition to those provided of Sicily, would have been welcomed, as would the inclusion of animated maps to reinforce the linkages and similarities between Italy and California. Geographers and historians alike have remarked on California’s exceptionalism and its regional distinctiveness. Finding the Mother Lode offers an original and much- needed contribution to the exploration of the Italian diaspora that continues to lie at the center of contemporary debates among scholars. The ilm has much to offer researchers interested in issues related to Italian migration, settlement, and transna- tionalism. Likewise, regional specialists who study North America and the American West will ind the documentary a welcome contribution. The ilm will ind a wide audience among scholars of immigration and cultural and ethnic studies in addition to those interested in California more generally. —JENNIFER J. HELZER California State University, Stanislaus Bella Vita: Famiglia, Tradizione, e Surf. By Jason Baffa. Haymaker Projects, 2013. 82 minutes. DVD format, color. Chris Del Moro is not your stereotypical Italian-American man. Pop culture, as we know, tends to deine this image—from Goodfellas to The Sopranos to The Real Housewives of New Jersey and Jersey Shore—with materialistic, amoral, ever-lively characters utterly given over to their own degraded appetites. The hero of surf ilmmaker Jason Baffa’s 2013 Bella Vita, Del Moro looks far more the part of the classic Southern California surfer—lean, tan, with long, bleach-blond hair. He uses the term gratitude a lot. The