(ANSA) - ROME, MARCH 20 - The success of the PiccoloAmerica Foundation ends up in the Times: "Overwhelming victory for CinemaAmerica: the stars support the occupiers", headlines the London newspaper, reconstructing the story that saw a group of young activists win the ten-year battle legal to save the largest single-screen cinema in Rome from demolition.
Last week the court issued a preservation order for Cinema America, a historic 1950s building in the Trastevere district, truly a victory for the 100 tenacious activists who illegally occupied the 700-seat hall in 2012 to fight plans to transform it into apartments, calling the attention of many young supporters such as Martin Scorsese, Ken Loach, Spike Lee and Wes Anderson, Jeremy Irons, Richard Gere and Keanu Reeves, but also Carlo Verdone, Elio Germano and many Italian protagonists with even the Pope to bless their battle.
"We are demonstrating that cinema can survive," 31-year-old leader Valerio Carocci told the Times.
Camping in the disused cinema, the group renovated it and screened films and live football matches, only to be evicted in 2014. Undaunted, they brought the cinema to the streets, on crowded summer evenings that had become a social phenomenon.
The group, which in the meantime has become a foundation, took part in and won the tender for the Cinema Troisi, in the same district, which once renovated is now a cultural center loved by young people and won the golden ticket for the sale of over 60,000 tickets.
Carocci also broke the news at the Times, speaking of the widespread cinema project in Trastevere.
Now that the court has blocked the demolition of Cinema America, he has declared that he is ready to speak with the owners to take it over and is evaluating four other abandoned single-screen cinemas in Trastevere that could work together as a widespread multiplex, to make the old district the most crowded with young people and tourists, a film district.
After all, Trastevere, like many districts of Rome, was full of cinemas, all very popular and now abundant, including Reale, Roma, Pasquino and Pidocchietto.
(HANDLE).
