Magical, buried, naked, lost, submerged, sorrowful, merciless, bitter, enchanted.
In over a century of cinema (and of Italian titles, not always faithful to the originals…) the city has been all this, and much more: the place of dreams and nightmares, of frenzy and boredom, of success and anonymity, of sociality and alienation. Filmed from life or reconstructed in the studio, imagined or real, it has often stolen the scene from stories, performers, authors: not just a simple set, therefore, but a precipitate of situations and feelings, possibilities and frustrations. To celebrate this extraordinary protagonist of the history of cinema, the second edition of “Quo vadis? Al cinema nel cuore di Roma”, promoted by the CSC – Cineteca Nazionale and the Parco archeologico del Colosseo, proposes this year, once again in the Temple of Venus and Roma, an authentic world tour between film and city.

A tour that touches nine decades (from the 1921 of Manhatta by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler, the first avant-garde film of American cinema, to the Tokyo of Lost in Translation by Sofia Coppola, dated 2003) and four continents. There are two Italian stops: the visionary and rambling Roma of Federico Fellini, to which we entrusted the opening, and the Naples scarred by lawlessness of Le mani sulla città by Francesco Rosi. The obligatory capitals of cinema are (almost) all there: Paris (before the classic Cléo de 5 à 7 by Agnés Varda, the reckless sequence plan of C’était un rendez-vous, a Claude Lelouch in purity), New York (the aforementioned Manhatta is joined by Woody Allen’s declaration of love for his Manhattan), L.A. (William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A., reminding us that without the city there would be no detective story, nor noir), London (captured in the midst of the ‘swinging era’ by Michelangelo Antonioni in Blow-Up), Berlin (with the Wall bursting onto the set of One, Two, Three! but not even History can sabotage a Billy Wilder comedy). The appointment with the silent film is entrusted to the projection (with live piano accompaniment) of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans by F. W. Murnau, the timeless challenge between the temptations of the metropolis and the cathartic value of nature. Three bets we cherish: Edward Yang’s Taipei Story, a masterpiece of Taiwanese cinema restored by Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, Jules Dassin’s adventurous Istanbul of Topkapi, a divertissement with a stellar cast to be rediscovered in its original version, and the homage to two great African filmmakers, between Dakar (Borom Sarret, on the centenary of the birth of the Senegalese Ousmane Sembène) and Cairo (Central Station, by the Egyptian Yusuf Shahin). Finally, with Mariupolis, the memory of Mantas Kvedaravičius, the filmmaker killed in 2022 in Mariupol, one of the martyred cities of the war in Ukraine.

THE PROGRAMME

4th July – ROME

Roma – Federico Fellini, 1972, 119’

5th July – NEW YORK

Manhatta – Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler, 1921, 10’

Manhattan – Woody Allen, 1979, 97’

6th July – TAIPEI

Taipei Story – Edward Yang, 1985, 119’

7th July – BERLIN

One, Two, Three – Billy Wilder, 1961, 110’

8th July – TOKYO

Lost in Translation – Sofia Coppola, 2003, 104’

9th July – ISTANBUL

Topkapi – Jules Dassin, 1964, 120’

10th July – NAPLES

Le mani sulla città – Francesco Rosi, 1963, 107’

11th July – SILENT CITY

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1927, 94’

Live musical accompaniment by Maestro Antonio Coppola

12th July – DAKAR/CAIRO

Borom Sarret – Ousmane Sembène, 1963, 22’

Cairo Station (Bāb al-Hadīd) – Youssef Chahine, 1958, 74’

13th July – MARIUPOL 

 Mariupolis – Mantas Kvedaravičius, 2016, 96’

14th July – PARIGI

C’était un rendez-vous – Claude Lelouch, 1976, 9’

Cléo de 5 à 7 – Agnès Varda, 1962, 90’

15th July – LOS ANGELES 

To Live and Die in L.A. – William Friedkin, 1985, 116’

16 luglio – LONDON

Blow-up – Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966, 112’