Martin Scorsese Petitions to Save Rome’s Cultural Venues — Including 50 Movie Theaters

A vote is scheduled for next week in Italy that could turn cultural venues in Rome — including 50 movie theaters — into shopping malls and supermarkets. Martin Scorsese is among the filmmakers petitioning to save them.

Architect Renzo Piano has shared a letter whose appeal has now been endorsed by filmmakers and Hollywood luminaries including Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jane Campion, Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, David Cronenberg, Ari Aster, Julie Taymor, Yorgos Lanthimos, J.J. Abrams, Josh Safdie, Todd Haynes, Judd Apatow, Damien Chazelle, Mark Cousins, Alfonso Cuarón, Willem Dafoe, Robert Eggers, Joanna Hogg, Dawn Hudson, Isabella Rossellini, Mark Ruffalo, Paul Schrader, Léa Seydoux, John Turturro, Thomas Vinterberg, Jeremy Thomas, Paweł Pawlikowski, and Debra Winger.

The government of the Lazio region, which hosts the Italian capital, is about to approve a law that will be voted on next week that would make 50 movie theaters, including Rome’s many historic and abandoned cinemas, vulnerable to new development and to becoming commercial properties. IndieWire understands that Italian real estate is already looking at these locations to potentially convert them in anticipation of the vote. Over 500 filmmakers have signed an appeal in the Italian press, including Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera, asking to preserve these spaces. Italy’s own top soccer player and former AS Roma captain Francesco Totti has also spoken out strongly in opposition to the forthcoming vote.

Here’s what Scorsese had to say in a statement shared with IndieWire: “As Renzo Piano eloquently reflects on the current situation in Rome, it is clear that the attempt to repurpose spaces intended for the possible cultural renaissance of the Eternal City into hotels, shopping centers, and supermarkets is utterly unacceptable. Such a transformation would represent an irrevocable loss: a profound sacrilege not only to the city’s rich history but also to the cultural legacy for the future generations. We call upon our colleagues across the globe, festival directors and all the cultural operators to sign this letter to save the last chance for redemption of one of the most important cultural and artistic cities worldwide. This letter is also personally addressed to President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to prevent any conversion of the cultural spaces in Rome. It’s our duty to transform these abandoned ‘cathedrals in the desert’ into true temples of culture, places capable of nourishing the souls of both present and future generations.”

IndieWire has been in touch with the leaders of Piccolo America, which runs both Rome’s largest open-air film festival and the Cinema Troisi, a single-screen theater in Rome that plays 24 hours a day. They are asking for more signatures to be sent to protect parks and historic venues in Rome. You can write to valerio.carocci@piccoloamerica.it, “whether because you love Rome and maybe have walked the parks and places of our Il Cinema in Piazza or because you have visited the Cinema Troisi of the Piccolo America in Rome,” Carocci said.

“As Renzo Piano wrote, and I subscribe after spending three months around Paris and Marseilles studying its cultural offerings, we believe that these cultural spaces can evolve like the ‘Tiers-Lieux’ that I had the pleasure of experiencing in France. Each of these can certainly return to being a cinema, but the important thing is that they reopen as places of culture and education, temples to nourish the soul and creativity… If we save these places from conversion into commercial centers, there may be the dawn of a new world in Rome; a cultural renaissance that Italy needs. We ask for help from all over the world for the city where we were born and raised.”