Marta Cillero Manzano: How was the CORRENTE collective born?
CORRENTE: The CORRENTE collective was born at the end of 2022 from an idea of 10 directors, all of whom passed through the crossroads of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia of Palermo, united by the desire to introduce real cinema to an ever-wider audience but above all to give back to the city an open and free space in which to share visions, talk about cinema and rediscover the pleasure of the cinema experience. We have joined forces with the aim of turning the lights back on at the former Cinema Edison in Ballarò. The building, originally born as Casa del Fascio in 1939, was then transformed into a cinema but closed its doors in the 1980s.
The University of Palermo restored it about twenty years ago and today uses it as a classroom for the Faculty of Law; we made an agreement with them and, thanks to this precious collaboration, we managed to realize the ambitious project of returning the room to its original function. While more and more cinemas are closing, it seemed to us an important challenge to reopen one and return this space to the community.
MCM: Your shows are designed to bring not only a cinephile audience to the neighborhood, but also and above all to arouse curiosity and involve those who live in the neighborhood. In this sense, what are the challenges of your work?
CC: There are many challenges but the neighborhood responded with great enthusiasm, especially for the afternoon screenings. There are children and teenagers who have become our most loyal audience, they never miss a single appointment and often even give us a hand in managing the space.
It is more difficult to involve older children and the adult public, but there was no shortage of families and curious people who showed up during some of the busiest evenings. Our goal is to make the former Cinema Edison increasingly a safe space of reference for anyone, both to spend a different evening watching a good film, and to have a chat and meet new people.
MCM: CORRENTE is managing to bring to Palermo new languages and perspectives on the crucial issues of our time, narratives outside the box, documentaries and independent films open to all. How do you work among yourselves and in the area? How do you manage to involve such different groups in your activities? What is your relationship with other social realities in the neighborhood?
CC: There is a group of selectors who select the films that we all propose, works that we usually discover at Italian or international festivals (of which many of us are frequent visitors), then the final decision is made jointly agreement with everyone else. As a group, after an initial adjustment period, we began to divide tasks into work departments, to be more effective and at the same time allow each of us to follow our own personal inclination and make the most of our network. At the moment there are the communication department, children’s programming, adult programming, bureaucracy, projection technicians, photographers and videomakers. Naturally there is a continuous exchange between the groups through weekly meetings in which we update ourselves and make the most important decisions together. When choosing films, each of us clearly retains our own personal taste and for this reason the proposals are often very different from each other. However, a common denominator remains: bringing independent and courageous cinema to theaters that is capable of stimulating reflections and discussions on crucial contemporary issues. For us it is essential essential that films become an opportunity for open and free comparison with the reality in which we find ourselves. We have often invited associations that work in the neighborhood and in the city to animate and stimulate debate with the public after the screening, for example we have collaborated with Arci Porco Rosso and Non una di meno Palermo, just as we are planning joint actions with other entities for the future such as SOS Ballarò, Sbaratto, Efebo d’oro, Goethe Institut, Institut Français, Soleluna etc.
MCM: What would you say to those who see Palermo as a city with few spaces and opportunities for cultural spaces and artistic practices?
CC: We believe that Palermo is a city that has many spaces and many resources to create human and artistic connections. Of course, as in many other large cities, these resources are not always exploited or tend to be dispersed, and one quickly falls into the trap of thinking that there are no places to imagine a different reality. Perhaps with a little recklessness, we wanted to get involved and sought the complicity of a neighborhood like Ballarò to start sowing. Because if you want to see a different city, where there are opportunities and cultural spaces for everyone, the first step must start from us.
MCM: Now that you are starting to grow, what are your next medium and long-term dreams, ambitions and goals?
CC: We are working to have a summer arena for the summer; we would like to take the cinema out of the theater and into the center of the neighborhood, into the square, and make it to all intents and purposes a place that breathes and dialogues with anyone who passes by there or lives in the surrounding spaces. We would like to build the arena together with the Sbaratto association market using crates, chairs etc so as to create a space that truly belongs to everyone.
Our greatest ambition certainly remains that of systematically involving the citizens of Ballarò and the realities of the neighborhood. It would be nice, in the future, to be able to have a neighborhood cinema that is truly such, that welcomes, for example, programming proposals from local residents or that becomes a creative and artistic laboratory for the boys and girls of Ballarò. Among the ideas for the future, as the more we grow and the more workload increases, there is also the idea of opening the circle of CORRENTE to a group of volunteers who group of volunteers who believe in the project and are willing to give us a hand.