Two screenings a day, free entry, air conditioning at full capacity: from Thursday 23 July eleven Roman cinemas have been transformed into as many refuges against the heat. Is called The great cold and it is the plan that the Capitol presented on Wednesday 22 July, as the city prepared for the fourth heat wave of the summer.
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This was illustrated by the mayor Roberto Gualtieri and the councilor for culture Massimiliano Smeriglio, supported by Simona Cives (director of the Library Institution of Rome), by Edoardo Zanchini (head of the Climate Office of Rome Capital) and by Leandro Pesci, president of Anec Lazio, the regional association of cinema exhibitors which operationally manages the screenings. The initiative, as specified on the official page of Roma Capitale, was born from the Department of Culture and the Department of Cultural Activities, with the executive production of Zètema Progetto Cultura and the support of the Capitoline Civil Protection, which also takes care of the free distribution of bottles of water in the points involved.
How projections work
In participating theatres, the film on the bill is unique and is screened simultaneously everywhere, with two daily appointments: the first between 1pm and 2.45pm, the second between 6.30pm and 6.45pm, depending on the length of the film. Access is free while places last, without reservation. The theaters involved include the Cinema Adriano Multisala in Municipio I, the Cinema Lux, the Cinema Andromeda, the Cinema Odeon Multiscreen, the Cinema Teatro San Timoteo, The Screen Cinemas of Ottavia, The Space Cinema Parco de’ Medici, the UCI Luxe Maximo on via Laurentina, the UCI Cinemas Porta di Roma and the UCI Cinemas Roma Est in Lunghezza. There are eleven rooms in total, distributed among the municipalities so as to cover almost the entire city.
Libraries, open without registration
From 23 July to 4 August, eleven municipal libraries, where water is distributed, will also remain accessible free of charge and without registration. These include the Renato Nicolini Library in Corviale, the Vaccheria Nardi Library, the Joyce Lussu Library on via Costantino, the Elsa Morante Library (which in the summer period operates from the replacement location in the tourist port of Ostia), the Goffredo Mameli Library, the Laurentina Library, the Guglielmo Marconi Library, the Flaminia Library, the Fabrizio Giovenale Library and the Enzo Tortora Library.
Two extraordinary openings
The plan also extends to two spaces that have nothing to do with cinema and libraries, except for the promise of refreshment. At the Teatro Argentina the Squarzina Room opens free of charge, set up with books available for consultation; at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni free entry concerns the Auditorium, where in the meantime the photographic exhibition of Emergency “Revelation” by Lorenzo Meloni is set up.
For updated timetables, film programming room by room and a complete map of the points involved, you can consult the complete program of the initiative
