Okupations are often conceived of as the taking and creation of spaces, spaces that then serve to satisfy immediate needs. We think of houses, factories, land, and so on. But okupations are also, and perhaps above all else, spaces for the creation of new forms of life, often sadly summarised as merely “cultural”, but which have fundamentally to do with an ethics: the ethics of self-management, of mutual aid, and collective creation.
We share below a reflection on the okupation of the Cinema América de Roma, an experiment in autonomous creation …
It was a couple of years ago (November 2012) when something other than tourism was happening in Trastevere, one of the historical neighbourhoods of Rome. A group of young, enthusiastic people, having pulled back the sleeves of their elegant shirts, were engaged in the work of cleaning. The space that they were cleaning was large and dusty due to the idleness it was condemned to years before. An equivalent to Oblomov but one with an owner. The space had a grand name, it was called Cinema America.
It is nothing new to say that Italy gave numerous film talents and served as a natural setting for many films. But today, going around the city of Rome, one is struck by the number of abandoned cinemas in various neighbourhoods. (For a map of ‘closed cinemas’ see romabbandonata.org). There is no official cultural policy on these spaces in Italy, as there seems to be no cultural policy in general, be it for cinemas, theatres, small bookshops, etc. Some of these cinemas over time were occupied and Cinema America in Trastevere was one of them.
The owners of the building, it was said, had the intention to transform it into luxury apartments, as the real estate prices in Trastevere are very high. It was at this point that a group of young people, with the support of the neighbourhood (collaboration with the neighbourhood strongly characterised this occupation), decided to occupy it. Cinema America became Cinema America Occupato. The space was cleaned up, restored, and at the entrance a small library was created. Later on this was to be followed by the temporary Piccolo Cinema America next door, in what was formerly a bakery.
The period of occupation was refreshing, enriching, inspiring: hundreds of free film projections, courses on theatre and painting, concerts, debates that gathered publics as large as the space of the cinema could host. The new cinema went beyond what the old cinema was, becaming a social cultural centre for the neighbourhood.
The occupation, like any other, was fragile, insofar as it faced the permanent threat of eviction. The visit of the Minister of Culture, Franceschini, in July 2014, gave some hope to the occupiers. The minister praised the initiative and promised that he would make sure that it would not be transformed into an apartment building. It wasn’t long before the ownership of the building made itself present on the scene and managed to obtain an order of eviction. On the 3rd of September 2014 the occupation was brought to an end.
One can of course raise the question as to the significance of maintaining and struggling for the buildings of old cinemas. After all, the argument could go, it’s not that the cinemas have completely disappeared, they simply moved towards other parts of the city and are now parts of shopping centres. One can also find smaller cinemas, at times very small, in the neighbourhoods of the city. People also nowadays watch films in the tranquility of their homes, on their super definition screens. The most immediate answer that is given in these cases is that of historical heritage. The argument is worthy of support but is insufficient, as it risks turning spaces into museums frozen in time that are not lived. What is at stake, it seems, is having the spaces ‘breath’, making them alive, both the spaces and whatever surrounds them, the neighbourhoods in this case. Both the closure, sales and destruction of these cinemas and the emergence of new ones in the shopping centres are subject to the logic of profit and not that of the needs of the population. The disappearance of cinemas in the neighbourhoods, along with other cultural spaces, is the disappearance of possible spaces of collective aggregation, where not only art, but also life could be lived together. In the face of increasing neutralisation, sterilisation, desertification of the neighbourhoods where collective moments of life can be lived only through consumption (the latter making this collective living problematic or at least limiting), questions of the kind acquire greater importance. It is precisely for this reason that once occupied, these spaces have to recreate a cinema, that is to say, to go beyond the logic of consumption. Cinema America tried to do precisely that and to turn the cinema into social cultural space for all; and it had the very strong support of the neighbourhood. The large space that this, and often other historical cinemas have, stand in contrast to the smaller cinemas that try to survive today. These large spaces are important as they allow for broader engagement of the public in activities that go beyond film projections.
Following the expulsion of the occupiers, the youth decided to ‘reverse’ the process and rather than having the city come to the building to watch the cinema, it was the cinema that was carried into the city through the graffiti made in one of the squares. Their determination to project, to spread-contaminate and to stay is quite striking: ’We promised that we will not leave Via Natale del Grande and so it happened. Before we were number 6 on the street, now we are number 7’ stated the occupiers. The former bakery next door has hosted them, giving birth to the temporary Piccolo Cinema America, where gatherings have continued to take place.
The group has written a letter which can be found on their website (in Italian), addressed to the mayor of the city of Rome. It begins by referring to the moment of imagining, a term that has been very much present in various occupy movements along with words such as dreaming, feeling, being irrational, all these opposed to the petrifying logic of the real and unavoidable. This imagining is neither empty nor superficial, for it allows us to think and to fall in love with the possible, and the seduction is the permanent beginning of a movement. And what is cinema if not seduction of an image projected through our lives.
Below is the translation of the letter to the mayor which reads ‘Deadline to the Mayor’. The group of occupiers continues to try and find new forms of presence in the territory, to imagine, to persist. The promises given by the authorities are however rather modest.
Deadline to the Mayor
We imagined squares, built spaces of aggregation and sociability, we brought schools to the cinema and cinema to schools. We drew culture upon the walls of the city next to which there was nothing but decay and violence. We have transformed our experience demonstrating that, beyond the question of legal or illegal practice, this territory demands free space for sharing in which the youth can be the protagonist rather than the consumer. We have, with great difficulty found, 2 million and half Euros to purchase the Cinema America. We have put our trust in the administration but as of today no concrete solution has been proposed to guarantee the continuity to the project, which, during the last 5 months saw the participation of thousands of citizens in a room housing 50 people, without any heating. Waiting that the First Citizen honours his word with regard to the (promise) of temporarily assigning one of the abandoned spaces of Trastevere that belong to the city council for use, under rental conditions, we fix a Deadline: we are calling for a public assembly at the Bakery on the 6th of March, 18:00, the day when Piccolo America will be closing. We invite all those who believe in this experiment and in the future re-opening of Cinema America, and also those who believe in the defence of 42 abandoned cinemas, threatened by the politics of the ‘Memory of Cinema’, of which we demand immediate withdrawel. We also put forward, together with film makers, the draft of our own proposal on Memory of these cultural spaces, for their reopening. We are in our twenties, but we were taught to never accept prizes of comfort in relation to objectives. Therefore we will not renounce to being an opportunity for this city, and, if a solution is not found, we’ll be constrained to, once again, become a problem for this administration.
Video Il ritorno dell’America – storia di un cinema occupato …
Cinema America Occupato (Rome): The okupation of culture
Okupations are often conceived of as the taking and creation of spaces, spaces that then serve to satisfy immediate needs. We think of houses, factories, land, and so on. But okupations are also, and perhaps above all else, spaces for the creation of new forms of life, often sadly summarised as merely “cultural”, but which have fundamentally to do with an ethics: the ethics of self-management, of mutual aid, and collective creation.
We share below a reflection on the okupation of the Cinema América de Roma, an experiment in autonomous creation …
It was a couple of years ago (November 2012) when something other than tourism was happening in Trastevere, one of the historical neighbourhoods of Rome. A group of young, enthusiastic people, having pulled back the sleeves of their elegant shirts, were engaged in the work of cleaning. The space that they were cleaning was large and dusty due to the idleness it was condemned to years before. An equivalent to Oblomov but one with an owner. The space had a grand name, it was called Cinema America.
It is nothing new to say that Italy gave numerous film talents and served as a natural setting for many films. But today, going around the city of Rome, one is struck by the number of abandoned cinemas in various neighbourhoods. (For a map of ‘closed cinemas’ see romabbandonata.org). There is no official cultural policy on these spaces in Italy, as there seems to be no cultural policy in general, be it for cinemas, theatres, small bookshops, etc. Some of these cinemas over time were occupied and Cinema America in Trastevere was one of them.
The owners of the building, it was said, had the intention to transform it into luxury apartments, as the real estate prices in Trastevere are very high. It was at this point that a group of young people, with the support of the neighbourhood (collaboration with the neighbourhood strongly characterised this occupation), decided to occupy it. Cinema America became Cinema America Occupato. The space was cleaned up, restored, and at the entrance a small library was created. Later on this was to be followed by the temporary Piccolo Cinema America next door, in what was formerly a bakery.
The period of occupation was refreshing, enriching, inspiring: hundreds of free film projections, courses on theatre and painting, concerts, debates that gathered publics as large as the space of the cinema could host. The new cinema went beyond what the old cinema was, becaming a social cultural centre for the neighbourhood.
The occupation, like any other, was fragile, insofar as it faced the permanent threat of eviction. The visit of the Minister of Culture, Franceschini, in July 2014, gave some hope to the occupiers. The minister praised the initiative and promised that he would make sure that it would not be transformed into an apartment building. It wasn’t long before the ownership of the building made itself present on the scene and managed to obtain an order of eviction. On the 3rd of September 2014 the occupation was brought to an end.
One can of course raise the question as to the significance of maintaining and struggling for the buildings of old cinemas. After all, the argument could go, it’s not that the cinemas have completely disappeared, they simply moved towards other parts of the city and are now parts of shopping centres. One can also find smaller cinemas, at times very small, in the neighbourhoods of the city. People also nowadays watch films in the tranquility of their homes, on their super definition screens. The most immediate answer that is given in these cases is that of historical heritage. The argument is worthy of support but is insufficient, as it risks turning spaces into museums frozen in time that are not lived. What is at stake, it seems, is having the spaces ‘breath’, making them alive, both the spaces and whatever surrounds them, the neighbourhoods in this case. Both the closure, sales and destruction of these cinemas and the emergence of new ones in the shopping centres are subject to the logic of profit and not that of the needs of the population. The disappearance of cinemas in the neighbourhoods, along with other cultural spaces, is the disappearance of possible spaces of collective aggregation, where not only art, but also life could be lived together. In the face of increasing neutralisation, sterilisation, desertification of the neighbourhoods where collective moments of life can be lived only through consumption (the latter making this collective living problematic or at least limiting), questions of the kind acquire greater importance. It is precisely for this reason that once occupied, these spaces have to recreate a cinema, that is to say, to go beyond the logic of consumption. Cinema America tried to do precisely that and to turn the cinema into social cultural space for all; and it had the very strong support of the neighbourhood. The large space that this, and often other historical cinemas have, stand in contrast to the smaller cinemas that try to survive today. These large spaces are important as they allow for broader engagement of the public in activities that go beyond film projections.
Following the expulsion of the occupiers, the youth decided to ‘reverse’ the process and rather than having the city come to the building to watch the cinema, it was the cinema that was carried into the city through the graffiti made in one of the squares. Their determination to project, to spread-contaminate and to stay is quite striking: ’We promised that we will not leave Via Natale del Grande and so it happened. Before we were number 6 on the street, now we are number 7’ stated the occupiers. The former bakery next door has hosted them, giving birth to the temporary Piccolo Cinema America, where gatherings have continued to take place.
The group has written a letter which can be found on their website (in Italian), addressed to the mayor of the city of Rome. It begins by referring to the moment of imagining, a term that has been very much present in various occupy movements along with words such as dreaming, feeling, being irrational, all these opposed to the petrifying logic of the real and unavoidable. This imagining is neither empty nor superficial, for it allows us to think and to fall in love with the possible, and the seduction is the permanent beginning of a movement. And what is cinema if not seduction of an image projected through our lives.
Below is the translation of the letter to the mayor which reads ‘Deadline to the Mayor’. The group of occupiers continues to try and find new forms of presence in the territory, to imagine, to persist. The promises given by the authorities are however rather modest.
Deadline to the Mayor
We imagined squares, built spaces of aggregation and sociability, we brought schools to the cinema and cinema to schools. We drew culture upon the walls of the city next to which there was nothing but decay and violence. We have transformed our experience demonstrating that, beyond the question of legal or illegal practice, this territory demands free space for sharing in which the youth can be the protagonist rather than the consumer. We have, with great difficulty found, 2 million and half Euros to purchase the Cinema America. We have put our trust in the administration but as of today no concrete solution has been proposed to guarantee the continuity to the project, which, during the last 5 months saw the participation of thousands of citizens in a room housing 50 people, without any heating. Waiting that the First Citizen honours his word with regard to the (promise) of temporarily assigning one of the abandoned spaces of Trastevere that belong to the city council for use, under rental conditions, we fix a Deadline: we are calling for a public assembly at the Bakery on the 6th of March, 18:00, the day when Piccolo America will be closing. We invite all those who believe in this experiment and in the future re-opening of Cinema America, and also those who believe in the defence of 42 abandoned cinemas, threatened by the politics of the ‘Memory of Cinema’, of which we demand immediate withdrawel. We also put forward, together with film makers, the draft of our own proposal on Memory of these cultural spaces, for their reopening. We are in our twenties, but we were taught to never accept prizes of comfort in relation to objectives. Therefore we will not renounce to being an opportunity for this city, and, if a solution is not found, we’ll be constrained to, once again, become a problem for this administration.
Video Il ritorno dell’America – storia di un cinema occupato …