Italy: Rome’s Fiamma cinema to be reopened

Rome: The Fiamma cinema, which closed its doors in 2017, is to reopen as a multifunctional cinema centre with two screens, a study room, a media library and a café, the Italian culture ministry announced.

The state used funds from the multi-billion National Plan of Recovery and Resilience (PNRR) to acquire the movie theatre on Via Bisolatti, near the American embassy on Via Veneto.

The president of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC), Marta Donzelli, said the venue would become a “lively place dedicated to the promotion of cinematographic culture”.

Praising the “far-sighted” project, culture minister Dario Franceschini told news agency ANSA that it was “paradoxical” that cinemas are in crisis “precisely in a moment of great rebirth for Italian cinema”.

The purchase of the Fiamma building cost just over €3 million, almost half the funds available to the CSC, reports Artribune, with the remaining sum to be used to renovate the property.

The Fiamma, which closed in October 2017 allegedly due to high rents, launched on 4 February 1960 with the premiere of Federico Fellini’s classic La Dolce Vita, which was filmed mainly in the nearby Via Veneto area.