“There are stories that rekindle enthusiasm and convince you that all is not lost”. This is the premise from which it starts “Palmadoro – the great story of a small cinema” (Edizioni Sabinae, 164 pages) told in the latest book by Corrado Giustiniani, a long-time journalist and author of the Messaggero di Roma before retiring and dedicating himself to other passions. "The future can and must be built - he says himself in presenting his work - even in a sector, such as theater entertainment, which has suffered a severe blow from the health emergency".
And so the story of the Palma family unfolds, who have dedicated several lives, from grandparents to grandchildren, to the Palma cinema - a name that is also a destiny - in Trevignano, on Lake Bracciano, just outside Rome. The cinema is small, the passion of the owners, born to do anything but animated by a dream, that of giving their community a cinema, is great. And so, from a carpentry workshop in 1940 - when the first screenings started and those who had no money to pay for the ticket paid with eggs and fruit - we arrive at the present day. From Fabio, Palma's grandfather to his son Ferdinando and again to Fabio, his grandson, we arrive at the new millennium and at the Trevignano FilmFest born in 2012.
The recipe is classic: passion and quality. And it was certainly worth telling. Below – courtesy of the author and the publisher – we publish an excerpt from the first chapter of the book which is emblematically entitled: Eighty Years of Passion.
Every time at sunset, on this small lake that knows how to pretend to be a sea, you are forced to stop, enchanted. A fiery laughter is released from the sky which is reflected in the water and becomes a fire, while the sun sets on the shore of Bracciano and disappears behind the Odescalchi estate. Near the Trevignano landing stage, three swans allow themselves a last swim, increasingly darker shapes that slip towards the night. You keep to the low wall of the lakefront, pass the fish market, the string of restaurants overlooking the shore, and reach the little square of the Palma, for a quiet evening at the cinema.
What quiet does not promise. A line of spectators, some in patient silence, others in muttering expectation, stretches out to the sidewalk. Sitting at the control desk, Fabio Palma, owner and soul of the cinema, greets, cuts off tickets, collects, gives change and meanwhile peers through the fogged glass of the front door, to which restless faces stick. What happened, Fabio?
“Nothing, it's just that this time I was wrong. One believes he is doing the right thing, he sees that P that Korean director has just won an Oscar so he's rescheduling it right away, for all those who haven't seen it yet. But who could have imagined that all these people would come? I'm sorry, many of them won't be able to enter. I decided to put it in the small room, because in the other room we are showing Muccino's film, which has just come out. But what's the problem? We'll do it again." Here is the superstitious question, the snag-busting interlayer, the little formula that in four words reveals the practical and optimistic nature of the gas station attendant with a passion for films: but what's the problem? None, if in 2020 the Cinema Palma di Trevignano Romano turned eighty and yet he looks like a little boy running towards the future, even the "post Covid" one, more than an octogenarian who goes with his cane.
A dazzling programming, first-rate equipment, prestigious guests and a great ability to adapt to new times. All this, combined with some mandatory rules, as a true temple of cinema: no halftime, the screening must be enjoyed in its entirety. Popcorn and the like are not sold and the only advertising allowed are trailers for new films.
The Palma was at the forefront in Italy in introducing multi-programming, i.e. the possibility of proposing distinct films on the same day and in the same theatre, exploiting the potential of digital projectors and thus meeting the different tastes of the public.
Furthermore since 2017 it has included films in the original language with Italian subtitles in the weekly timetable, which capture an increasingly large segment of admirers. An experiment conducted step by step. Initially, only one dedicated screening, on Mondays; then that of Wednesdays was added, and now, with Fridays, foreign language films can be viewed three times a week.
It wasn't easy to convince the distribution staff that the audience has changed, that many speak English and that there are those who prefer the original version over dubbing.
A fortunate meeting with the commercial director of Warner Bros, at the Professional Arthouse Cinema Days in Mantua, allowed Fabio to obtain Joker. So La di lui was one of the few Italian cinemas where the public was able to choose between the dubbed film and the warm voice of the protagonist Joaquin Phoenix.
They have been three generations of the same family to raise this creature with affection, tenacity, passion, with the fourth facing right now. First grandfather Fabio, the carpenter who had made up his mind to give the cinematograph to his fellow villagers, and so in 1939 he went to Rome with a friend to buy a “Modello Balilla” projector, placed it in his shop and in 1940 he began showing with the movie Unripe fruitby Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia.
Then his son Fernando, who finds the projector packed by his father underground, killed by machine gun shots from an American military plane, and rebuilds the cinema together with his trusted collaborator Angelo Parissi, who will become the oldest Italian projectionist, working up to the threshold of ninety years. It's the 50s, 60s and 70s, those of the cinema boom in Italy, Fernando manages them with wisdom and dedication and in the meantime he alternates this activity with the petrol station that he bought, right across the street.
But here it is the great crisis of 1985 hits cinemas, after the Craxi decree which allows Silvio Berlusconi to broadcast films on TV throughout the national territory. And it is then that, less than thirty years old, Fabio takes the field, son of Fernando and grandson of a great grandfather, who takes the road of art house cinema. “A quality cinema in the province? It will never take off”, Vittorio Cecchi Gori, met by chance, will tell him one day to his face, making all predictions wrong.
Over the past thirty years, three distinct initiatives have chiseled the Palma's pedigree. The "Aiace Prize", awarded for 18 editions, starting from 1989, to the best emerging Italian director, which brings Gabriele Salvatores, Francesca Archibugi, Michele Placido, Cristina Comencini, Matteo Garrone and many other notable names to Trevignano. In 1995 "La Cittadella del Corto" was born, the international short film festival which until 2009 attracted authors from all over Europe and from various countries of the world.
Finally, in 2012, the Trevignano FilmFest made its debut, a film festival which every year, at the beginning of autumn, shows the public some of the best films and documentaries, shot on a single theme of great social impact.
The FilmFest fills up with spectators, who come not only from the towns on the lake but also from the capital, and draws the attention of critics, newspapers and television to Palma. Among the guests, many protagonists, actors and directors. Carlo Verdone and Monica Guerritore, Maria Grazia Cucinotta and Elio Germano, Justin Chadwick and Jerome Enrico, Anita Caprioli and Marco D'Amore, Anna Ferzetti and Giorgio Colangeli, Luigi Lo Cascio, Iram Haq, Francesco Bruni, Armando Iannucci.
But, in addition to first-run films, event evenings are offered to the public, authentic gems that embellish the programming, definitively consecrating Palma as a pole of quality cinema in the province. More than once it was compared to the "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso", and it was the director of that film himself, Giuseppe Tornatore, who publicly evoked the comparison.
With a profound difference, however. The cinema of the Sicilian town, told by Tornatore, falls irrevocably into ruin, after an unnobleable agony consumed in red light films. Palma, on the other hand, has always been resurrected to this day. The first time, after the forced closure due to the Second World War. The second, in 1954, when a whirlwind destroyed it, and Fernando Palma and Angelo Parissi rebuilt it. The third in 1985, after the beating received by the Craxi decree and as mentioned it was Fabio, together with the most enlightened intellectuals who lived around the lake, who put it back on its feet.
In March 2020, the closure imposed for more than three months on all cinemas in Italy by the health emergency. Dramatic and full of unknowns for the years to come. But Palma was among the first in Italy to reopen its doors (June 20 in the hall, July 3 in the summer arena) and in the meantime the command bridge has strengthened with the fourth generation, represented by the thirty-two-year-old eldest son Francesco together to his wife Milagros, and their wealth of innovative ideas. The right couple to take up the challenge. (…)
Yes to the cinema, no to the brothel. It all begins between 1939 and 1940, when Trevignano is a village of farmers and fishermen very secluded, if not isolated ......
