Here is a short piece about my visit to film studio Cinecitta in Rome.

Last week, I was on vacation in Rome for a week and visited the renowned film studio Cinecittí, which means "cinema city." Four out of every ten Italian films are screened at Cinecittí. The site covers 400 hectares and employs approximately 5,000 professionals, ranging from costume designers, set builders, editors, and special effects experts to producers. There are four large studios and 22 sound studios. Cinecittí opened its doors in 1937 during the time when Mussolini was in power in Italy. He was a great film enthusiast, and his son was a filmmaker. Fortunately, he hardly used the medium of film as a propaganda tool, unlike his German ally Goebbels in Germany.
Cinecittà, located about five kilometers outside the center of Rome, is best known as the second home of the legendary film director Federico Fellini (1920–1993). The Maestro filmed La Dolce Vita, Casanova, La Cita delle Donne, and La Nave Va there, among others. A special 'Fellini Building' is dedicated to this imaginative and highly vital filmmaker. Many filmmakers, such as Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Nanni Moretti, have been inspired by him. Scorsese filmed Gangs of New York (2002) at Cinecittà, and Nanni Moretti filmed We Have a Pope there just last year. And Robert De Niro is going to shoot his new film Manual of Love 3 there.

Hollywood, too, has always had a fascination with Cinecittí and Rome. Gigantic productions such as Ben Hur, Cleopatra, and War and Peace were made in this studio. And major blockbusters like Visconti's Death in Venice and The English Patient by the tragically prematurely deceased Anthony Minghella were also realized here.

We are given a tour by a young female guide who works in the audiovisual archive. She speaks first in Italian and then in English. She takes us to sets from Gangs of New York and a street with saloons and a beautiful kiosk. We see cleverly constructed sets from the large-scale television series Rome (2005-2007), an Anglo-American co-production. There are also beautiful frescoes to view, barely distinguishable from real murals. On a large set with Roman temples and props standing here and there, an Italian production manager is giving instructions via her mobile phone.

After the guided tour, we can visit the Fellini building on our own, where a film about Cinecittí by film students from the Rome Film School is being screened. Federico Fellini also speaks and makes his characteristic statement: 'Nothing is known, everything is imagination.'
Then there is another building where you can see how a film is made. Via a corridor with moving film clips embedded in the floor, you are led to various rooms containing props, old cameras, film curiosities, and beautiful costumes from various films. Such as Audrey Hepburn's dress from Roman Holiday (filmed at Cinecittí) and the fur-collared coat of the voluptuous actress Anita Ekberg, which she wore in the famous scene from La Dolce Vita in the Trevi Fountain. There is also an opportunity to experience a live film shoot, but after spending four hours in Cinecittí in a temperature of 30 degrees, we decide not to do so. It remains remarkable to visit a site where you arrive with a film script and, a few months later, leave the gates of this dream factory richer.



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