Lizzy Davies 

How one bohemian quarter of Rome is fighting to save its artistic soul

Student occupation activists, backed by local residents and film-makers, have hatched a new plan for symbolic cinema in the Trastevere district, writes Lizzy Davies
  
  

Student occupiers are evicted  from Cinema America  in Rome earlier this month.
Student occupiers are evicted from Cinema America in Rome earlier this month. Photograph: Stefano Montesi/ Corbis Photograph: Stefano Montesi/ Corbis

For the first time in years, the shutters of the 19th-century bakery at via Natale del Grande 7 have been lifted and the old counter sits, askew, in the middle of the room. The aroma of bread and biscotti may still be some way off – the electrical wiring hangs down perilously from the ceiling, and the teenagers cleaning up have a lot on their hands. But there is something in the air: hope, certainly, and perhaps a soupçon of defiance.

"This place is going to be called the Little Cinema America," says Valerio Curcio, a 22-year-old literature student. "We have decided to continue the battle from beyond."

For the past two years, ever since a group of Roman school pupils and university students started an occupation aimed at reclaiming abandoned buildings in the city centre and fighting property speculation, that battle took place from within the building next door: the Cinema America, a gem of 1950s Italian architecture which, in its heyday, would open its doors to streams of filmgoers and wow them with a roof that could be pulled aside to make way for the sky in the intermission.

Earlier this month, however, that occupation was halted when police cleared the cinema. The closure has provoked anger from the occupiers themselves, and from some of the most famous figures in contemporary Italian film-making, notably Paolo Sorrentino, whose Oscar-winning La Grande Bellezza celebrated Rome's beauty but also its decadence and decline.

Perhaps the most important expression of protest, however, has come from the occupation's own backyard: the swiftly gentrifying neighbourhood of once-bohemian Trastevere, where many long-term residents have come to appreciate the ragazzi (kids) of the Cinema America – not only because, unlike some of the partygoers that throng the cobbled-streets at night, they know how to behave themselves, but because they have given back this area some of its soul.

Piero Iacozzilli, of the Iacozzilli butchers down the road, says they have brought "a bit of freshness" to this formerly working-class neighbourhood on the west side of the Tiber. "And also certain values of Trastevere that have been lost … In general I'm against the idea of 'occupation', as a concept," he muses. "But these kids are really great and I hope they find a solution."

When the occupation began in November 2012 the Cinema America, opened in 1956, had already been shut for more than a decade, and since 2004 had been the object of conflict between its new private owner and those who wanted the building to retain its cultural function.

For years there was stalemate as opposition mounted to the owner's plans to turn the America into new apartments and underground parking. Then, suddenly, the occupation began and something quite different was born: a meeting place for the community, where Roma FC matches were shown on the big screen, students could come to study, locals could come to debate, mothers could bring their babies (there was a smoking ban) and film nights were held. And not just any film nights.

Sorrentino came to present a showing of La Dolce Vita. Nanni Moretti, director of Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope), introduced his own Caro Diario (Dear Diary). The big names of the Italian arts world were impressed by the professional and energetic brand of idealism that emanated from the newly reopened cinema.

"They are very good fellows," says celebrated photographer Marco Delogu as he saunters past the forno at No 7. "In a [post-Silvio Berlusconi] period in which people are just thinking about money, money, money, they bring a freedom and a sense of culture."

He likes them even more, he adds, because they have done it without any "shabby chic", hipsterish pretensions. And it's true: the occupation's uniform is a simple black T-shirt with a small Cinema America logo. There is not a directional haircut in sight.Perhaps this absence of attitude helped the youngsters to succeed in what Curcio calls "a new model of occupation for all". Their new-look cinema proved inclusive and won over those whose support had not been guaranteed. "At the start I was a little sceptical… but they've done well," says Guido Hermanin de Reichenfeld, an architect and president of an association of Trastevere residents. "They've managed to involve lots of people: families, students, school children." The only thing he didn't like were the Roma matches: he supports their arch-rivals Lazio.

Earlier this year things seemed to be looking up for the Cinema America. In July the culture minister, Dario Franceschini, announced that, due to the authentication of valuable 1950s-era mosaics, the building's artistic and historic heritage should be recognised. At the Venice film festival, citing the America, he announced a drive to recognise and save Italy's historic cinemas – so many of which have closed and been converted into shops, bingo halls and apartments in recent years.

And then, early on 3 September, a protester called Carocci, the only person sleeping in the America that night, was awoken by "this noise: boom, boom, boom". It was the police. He rushed to write on the occupation's Facebook profile: "Help eviction! [sic] Get here quick." Before long participants as well as angry locals gathered to protest. "They were shouting: 'let the kids stay!'," recalls Carocci, 22. But all was in vain. The clearing out of the occupation, requested by the owner, went ahead.

Far from downcast, however, the activists have found a new base, moving next door to the bakery, where the owners are letting them use the premises for free. In the area around via Natale del Grande, a road running off the San Cosimato market square, it is hard to find anyone with a bad word to say about the 30-strong group of teenagers and university students.

"The vast majority of the Trasteverini are on their side," says one man in his 20s, an estate agent who did not want to be named, perhaps because, as he admits, he approved of the illegal occupation. "You know who aren't? The new arrivals: the politicians, the journalists, the radical chic," he says and, at the same time, its "destruction". He reels off the problems: rowdy nightlife, crowds of tourists, gimmicky restaurants, property prices "which have gone crazy" – studios rented for €700 to visiting American students, for example, and €400,000-€500,000 for a one-bedroom flat. Born nearby, he now lives in Monteverde, an area of Rome further to the west and further from the madding crowd. "I love Trastevere," he says, despondently, "but it's all over." For Curcio and Carocci, however, it is far from over. Their gambit has only just begun. They want –with help from locals, the film world, and, perhaps, the city council of Rome – to buy the Cinema America.

"There's a thing which is very famous in England: fan-owned football clubs," says Curcio. "We want to create a fan-owned cinema … We want at least a part of this cinema to be bought by the people of the neighbourhood with quotas. You still get a vote whether you put in €10,000 or €20 … So the neighbourhood can take back the cinema."

He wants the prevailing attitude towards the politics of urban living to change, he says, from passivity to effective collective action. "It's quite another thing to make people understand that with collectivisation, everyday fightback and organisation, it is possible to change – and to govern – your neighbourhood."

 

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