News Culture

Rome's Fiamma cinema closes

By: Wanted in Rome

Date:

06 Oct, 2017

Multi-sala cinema showed films in original English-language versions.

The Fiamma cinema, which screened English-language movies regularly, has closed according to report in Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica.

The cinema's operators Circuito Cinema allegedly closed the multi-sala theatre, located near the American embassy near Via Veneto, due to high rents.

The cinema launched on 4 February 1960 with the premiere of Federico Fellini's classic La Dolce Vita, which was filmed mainly in the Via Veneto area.

The Fiamma is the latest English-language cinema in Rome to close, following the Metropolitan near Piazza del Popolo, which closed in 2011, and the Alcazar in Trastevere, which closed last year but has since reopened as a venue for live music.

Numerous other English-language cinemas in the city have closed over the last two decades, including the Majestic and Capranica in the centre, and the Pasquino in Trastevere, while multi-sala venues like Warner Village in Piazza Repubblica and Vis Pathé in the Pigneto district were taken over by cinema chains The Space and UCI respectively.

Over the last ten years 1,150 cinemas have closed across Italy, with the curtain coming down on 45 movie theatres in the capital alone.

Circuito Cinema is bucking this national trend somewhat, according to La Repubblica, by reopening two cinemas following renovation works: the Eurcine in EUR and the King in the Trieste district. However neither cinema is noted for programming movies in their original English-language versions.

The best-known cinema left showing predominantly English-language films in Rome is the Nuovo Olimpia, on Via in Lucina 16, just off Via del Corso.

The capital's other cinemas showing English-language films, either regularly or otherwise, include the Barberini (Piazza Barberini 24-26); Lux (Via Massaciuccoli 31); Odeon (Piazza Stefano Jacini 22); Nuovo Sacher (Largo Ascianghi 1); Cinema dei Piccoli (Largo Marcello Mastroianni 15); Cinema Instrastevere (Vicolo Moroni 3); Space Cinema Moderno (Piazza della Repubblica 44); and the Space Cinema Parco de’ Medici (Viale Salvatore Rebecchini 3-5).

Photo La Repubblica