A work in progress excerpt which will be part of a larger semi-documentary film project, Porta Maggiore (forthcoming spring 2025). The feature length film explores the relationship between the built and natural environments of the eastern periphery of the Roman suburbs (Roma Est) and follows a community of resident activists that are protecting Lago Bullicante (ExSnia)––a naturally formed lake and ecosystem created through accidental and illegal human intervention, located within an abandoned viscose factory complex.
The Spazio Comune sequence documents the same resident activists in the temporary opening of the Nuovo Cinema Aquila (Pigneto, Rome) through the creation of a self-run neighborhood programming table during a period in which the cinema was closed to the public by the municipality (2017). The sequence foreshadows the conflicts between public and private spaces, highlighting the challenges resident activists will encounter in protecting the lake from developers.
Porta Maggiore is informed by a series of interrelated enquiries including an attempt to link the spectacle of filmmaking to the process of individuation; a search for liminal spaces of the periphery and the sense of alienation behind them; to question the forms of resistance and acceptance within the process of change; and the desire to find unity between the individual and collective in a supposed ‘post-fascist’ culture.
