Rome, after 8 years, Troisi Cinema reopens thanks to kids from Little America

After eight years of closure, Cinema Troisi reopens today, September 21, in the heart of Trastevere, thanks to thePiccolo America Association, which thus celebrates the first ten years of an experience that has marked the cultural scene not only in Rome.

For the girls and boys of the Association, the rebirth of the Troisi is the crowning achievement of the dream of reopening a place of culture, an island that was not there for those who, like them, from the suburbs want to cross and experience the center of Rome. Rooted in all of Piccolo America’s previous experiences, from the participatory workshop that was Cinema America Occupato to the traditional summer event Il Cinema in Piazza, the project intends to make the via Induno hall a democratic place and a laboratory of social relations

Thanks to the collaboration of I Wonder Pictures, a true film-manifesto opens at Cinema Troisi: the Palme d’Or film Titane by Julia Ducournau. Accompanied in Rome by the director and lead actor Vincent Lindon, the film will have its national premiere and exclusive screening from Sept. 21, arriving in Italian theaters the following week. From Sept. 30, the Troisi will host one of the year’s film-events, namely Cary Fukunaga’s highly anticipated new 007, No Time to Die starring Daniel Craig, distributed by Universal Pictures International Italy.

Completely renovated, the Cinema Troisi is a unique space: a historic three-hundred-seat movie theater equipped with the latest projection technology, a foyer-bar, a bright terrace, a multipurpose space for exhibitions and events, and above all, a study room-library with eighty stations, completely free of charge, open(the first example in Italy) 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

“Today we celebrate our first ten years by finally giving Cinema Troisi back to the city,” said Valerio Carocci, President of the Piccolo America Association, “a movie theater that we imagined as a landmark, an inclusive plaza, in people’s social lives. It will be a cinema that is always lit and open, even when the projector is turned off. One of the reasons that led us to apply for the call for the management of Cinema Troisi was the intuition of being able to create, by exploiting the spaces of the rationalist building originally used as boiler rooms, a study room as well. A place we have dreamed of for Rome ever since we began meeting as the ”Youth Assembly at the Center“ in 2011, the original nucleus of what would become, three years later, the Little America Association.”

“My admiration for the young people of Cinema America is great and deep,” says Titane director Julia Ducournau. “I am impressed by the strength of this group; their story moves me. A cinema that opens up is always a celebration, so I want to thank them for the struggle, the courage, the youth, for trying to open spirits, for welcoming us to Cinema Troisi, to their home, it’s a great honor.”

“The path taken so far,” adds Valerio Carocci, “has led us to design something unprecedented, which goes beyond the reopening of a movie theater: to take shape within the walls of the Troisi will be the very sense of our experience, the set of small and large choices with which step by step it has been built. First of all, the idea of investing in a public asset, a cinema that was disused at the time, creating a network of institutions and realities ready to support and finance the restoration and conservative rehabilitation project, such as the Ministry of Culture, the Lazio Region with Lazio Innova, BNL BNP Paribas Group, SIAE - Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori, Otto per mille of the Valdese Church, green partner Iberdrola and digital sponsor TIM.”

“A challenge that we enthusiastically accepted from the very beginning,” comments Federico Croce, Director General of the Association, “with the aim of keeping our promise: to ”save cinemas“ and open ”spaces of urban discontinuity“ by reconverting into a cultural asset what had been unduly abandoned, experimenting with and supporting another, common and social use. Countless were the bureaucratic obstacles we had to face and managed to solve: as of today, finally, Cinema Troisi is a reality, a place that creates work, an indispensable condition for us who have always wanted to refute the hateful phrase ’with culture you can’t eat’.”

Housed inside the former GIL building, designed in 1933 by Luigi Moretti and inaugurated in 1937, the Troisi was the subject of a complex restoration project supervised by architects Raffaella Moscaggiuri and Claudia Tombini, in constant dialogue with the Piccolo America association and under the supervision of the Soprintendenza Speciale Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio of Rome. A valuable work of restoration and conservative rehabilitation (among the interventions, the restitution of the functional circularity, the restoration of the original Carrara marble floors, steps and travertine coverings at the entrance, the recovery of some bas-reliefs, as well as the restoration, according to the original plans of architect Moretti, of the large axial glass window on the terrace) that from September 22 lives again in the photographic exhibition Cantiere Troisi, and that enthusiasts will be able to delve into on Saturday, October 2 and Sunday, October 3 thanks to guided tours curated by DOCOMOMO Italia for Open House Roma (reservations on https: //www.openhouseroma.org/node/26859).

Attention to the building’s past has gone hand in hand with attention to new technologies: the comfort of the three hundred amaranth armchairs designed by Cinearredo in dialogue with the hall’s architects is thus complemented by the Barco 4K projector (plus an additional laser projector for lectures and subtitles), the 13-meter Harkness screen with 1.4 gain, and the Dolby 7.1 surround sound system, all designed by the historic Cinemeccanica. The hall is also equipped with two seats reserved for people with disabilities, and a system for hearing- and visually-impaired persons, so as to ensure accessibility to screenings for all.

There is also the TIM study room: 150 square meters equipped with every comfort, with 45 seats inside (rising to 80 with the addition of the terrace). The first and only case in Italy, the cinema is open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day; it is a project capable of producing a social and environmental impact of about 1.7 million euros. An estimate made by Professor Luigi Corvo of Open Impact, an innovative start-up and research spin-off of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, considered the various dimensions of impact realized by the redevelopment (social, economic and environmental) calculated over the next ten years: 30 tons of CO2 saved each year, thanks to green partner Iberdrola, and 70 percent less operating costs for the public treasury.

Cinema Troisi, a property granted at a concessionary rent by Roma Capitale through a public tender, is a project of Piccolo America made possible thanks to the support of the Ministry of Culture, Lazio Region with Lazio Innova, BNL BNP Paribas Group, SIAE - Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori, Otto per mille of the Valdese Church, green partner Iberdrola and digital sponsor TIM.

Ph.Credit Flavia Rossi

Rome, after 8 years, Troisi Cinema reopens thanks to kids from Little America

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