Bruno Munari (1907–2008), industrial and graphic designer, kinetic artist and children’s book author, who produced such tongue-in-cheek objects as ‘useless machines’ and ‘illegible books’, was also actively involved in filmmaking during the 1960s. Yet, Munari himself would object to describing his cinema as ‘experimental’ or ‘avant-garde’; Munari, instead, insisted on calling his cinema a ‘cinema of research’. And in 1962, together with Marcello Piccardo and his family, he set up a studio for the production of just such work. Operative for about 10 years, Munari and Piccardo’s studio in Monte Olimpino, in Northern Italy, constitutes a fascinating and largely neglected venture in film production, one in which the aesthetics, politics and economics of the avant-garde and industrial film, the community film and the TV commercial are strangely, and prolifically, interwoven. The work produced at the studio has fascinating links with better-known experimental films of the period – links which are even more fascinating in a body of work produced in rather different conditions (such as corporate sponsorship from firms including Olivetti and Fiat) and for different purposes (from education to advertising).