Coming to theaters docufilm on Borromini, the genius who breathed new life into architecture

On May 15, 16 and 17, 2023, the docufilm Borromini and Bernini arrives in Italian cinemas. Challenge to Perfection, directed by Giovanni Troilo, former director of Frida. Viva la vida, Monet’s Water Lilies. A Spell of Water and Light and Power of Rome, on a subject by Luca Lancise, produced by Sky and Quoiat Films and distributed by Nexo Digital as part of the La Grande Arte al Cinema season.

The docufilm is the story of the architectural revolution of a solitary genius who changed the appearance of Rome forever through a personal challenge to conventions and prejudices, with the humility to learn from the past in order to invent the future, with the courage to pursue an idea while paying the price to the end. Borromini’s style is recognizable, eccentric, different: it differs from that of his contemporaries and exudes an austere spiritual authority, with perennial allusions that evoke the infinite. However, this is also the story of the most famous artistic rivalry ever, that between Francesco Borromini (Bissone, 1599 - Rome, 1667) and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Naples, 1598 - Rome, 1680), and above all the story of Borromini’s rivalry with himself: a genius so attached to his art that he turned it into a demon that devoured him from within, until it drove him to choose death, in a dramatic gesture, in order to touch eternity.

The film, a visual journey into the great beauty of Rome through the extraordinary season of the Baroque, winds its way through the streets of Rome, including Palazzo Barberini, St. Peter’s, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, the Oratory of San Filippo Neri, the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, Piazza Navona, the Church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, Villa Adriana in Tivoli, then moves on to Paolo Portoghesi’s Villa-garden in Calcata, Viterbo, and finally to Borromini’s Tomb in San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini, where the artist still rests today. The visual journey is given voice and thought by contemporary re-enactments, featuring actors Jacopo Olmo Antinori, Pierangelo Menci and Antonio Lanni, and talks by experts involved in the film: art critic and filmmaker Waldemar Januszczak, architect and academic Paolo Portoghesi, professor at Cornell University in Rome Jeffrey Blanchard, associate professor at the University of Camerino Giuseppe Bonaccorso, curator and art critic Aindrea Emelife, and professor of medieval and modern art history at American University in Rome Daria Borghese.

The original soundtrack, written directed and performed by composer and pianist Remo Anzovino, will be released this fall on the Nexo Digital label / Believe distribution, in the Nexo Soundtracks series.

Great Art at the Movies is an original and exclusive project of Nexo Digital. For 2023, La Grande Arte al Cinema is exclusively distributed in Italy by Nexo Digital with media partners Radio Capital, Sky Arte, MYmovies.it and in collaboration with Abbonamento Musei.

Coming to theaters docufilm on Borromini, the genius who breathed new life into architecture

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