Cinecittà is feting its 80th birthday with a major show organised with leading Italian news agency ANSA.
The show, Cinecittà - Events and Personalities Between Cinema and News, runs until May 7 at Teatro 1 in the historic film studios on Via Tuscolana in eastern Rome.
It features over 150 images and film footage from the Istituto Luce and ANSA that recount 80 years of Italian history, mingling divas and masterpieces with everyday life, dreams and major events, organisers said.
"ANSA and Cinecittà are two pillars of Made in Italy, one 80 years old and the other a little younger with its 72 years of work: a mirror for the country, the other dream factory," said ANSA culture desk chief Elisabetta Stefanelli.
Istituto Luce President Roberto Cicutto said that, for such an important birthday, "how could we not have thought of not doing something with ANSA".
"They are both institutions that preserve history.
"The result is an interesting and enjoyable show, that places what happened inside and outside these walls alongside each other".
Among the images are a very young Sophia Loren posing for paparazzi on the front of a car; Federico Fellini drying Anita Ekberg's feet after her iconic dip in the Trevi Fountain in La Dolce Vita; and Benito Mussolini, who laid the first stone for the studios in January 1936.
Others include the economic boom, quiz king Mike Bongiorno, the Moro kidnapping, Pasolini's denunciation of corruption, the Moon landings, migrant landings, Mafia fighter Giovanni Falcone's murder, Roberto Benigni's Oscar for Life is Beautiful, and the reality show Big Brother, set inside Cinecittà itself.
"Cinecittà was restored to the public in July and we want to become an open space for in-depth research, enjoyment and curiosity. And we will have an increasing number of exhibitions and workshops," Cicutto said. The exhibition "is dedicated in large part to young people.
They will find it interesting to discover hero worship before the era of social media, how photographers worked in the streets or behind the scenes of Cinecittà before Facebook," he continued. "Most of all, it shows how moments of social decline have always been redeemed by the ability of cinema to transform them into an object of reflection and art" Cicutto continued.
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