Mario Monicelli

The last work of the great Mario Monicelli, the short film "Vicino al Colosseo... c'è Monti" was screened at the Festival Visionaria soon after its presentation at the Venice Film Festival 2008.
Tribute to the father of Italian comedy, the screening took place on October 4 at the Metropolitan cinema of Piombino.

"I wanted to tell a Rione (old roman quarter) of Rome, the most ancient perhaps, not using emphatic and imperial tones but focusing on the everyday life of its residents. I wanted to talk about a village with craftsmen, ancient streets with processions, squares that celebrate the typical popular roman celebrations in October, curious and unexpected shops, tropical gardens behind the walls of the houses, music and cinema schools, theatres and boxing gyms hidden in the cellars. Everything is told very fast, in order to tempt a curious person to look for the most secret sides of Rione Monti."

Mario Monicelli

"Monti is my Rione, an old quarter that in Rome we usually call Rione. It is the most ancient in the city, the first one of the twelve that are located in the old center of the town. It is placed between via Nazionale and via Cavour, behind the Colosseum that is visible on the top of via degli Annibaldi. We are in the ancient Suburra, very close to the Imperial Rome and Roman Fora. Here, in this tangle of alleys, Tribunes and Caesars met in the brothels and had dinner in small inns. In the Suburra there are still the whores, moldavian, senegalese, italian, chinese. You see them wearing slippers and dressinggown and go out for shopping among the others residents. In Rione Monti craftsmen, traders, politicians, second-rate artists, film producers, directors, included Monicelli, live together peacefully. And me too. I live there and I asked Mario to film this small village in the middle of Rome, his friends and his dear places. He accepted but wanted the documentary to be short. “Vicino al Colosseo c’è Monti” is born like that."

Chiara Rapaccini

THE FILM: