Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

Let's start from the beginning: where the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese really is

To get to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, the first thing to know is that you shouldn't look for it along a busy street, with a lit sign and a box office facing the sidewalk. It isn't like that. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese sits inside the greenery, at the end of a tree-lined avenue, inside a nineteenth-century building that wasn't born for cinema: the Casino delle Rose, in Largo Marcello Mastroianni, in the heart of Villa Borghese. You get there on foot, and this is already the first thing that makes a visit to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese different from any suburban multiplex. You don't park in front of the door, you don't buy your ticket between one fast food place and the next. You approach slowly, among the pines and the holm oaks, and when the building appears at the far end of the lawn it is almost a surprise.

In every season the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese turns out to be a small miracle of location. You are in the center of Rome, a short walk from Piazza di Spagna and the Pincio, and yet you are in an enormous park where you almost can't hear the cars. Villa Borghese is the city's great garden, 80-plus hectares of lawns, groves, fountains, statues and avenues, and the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese occupies a privileged corner of it, near the Porta Pinciana entrance, in that upper part of the villa that looks toward the historic center. It is an address worth learning by heart: Largo Marcello Mastroianni 1, a name that by itself tells the vocation of the place, because naming a largo after Marcello Mastroianni and putting Rome's house of cinema inside it is one of those coincidences that in Rome are never coincidences.

It's best to arrive at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese prepared: don't expect a cathedral, expect a villa. The appeal lies in exactly this gap. You enter a building that is more than a century old, with high ceilings, elegant rooms, a garden around it, and inside they screen films. Often for free. It is one of the most civilized things Rome has done in recent decades, and it deserves to be told properly, calmly, the way you tell about a place you love.

The Casino delle Rose: the historic building that now houses the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

To understand the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese you have to start from the walls that contain it, that is, from the Casino delle Rose. The word "casino," here, has nothing to do with gambling: in the vocabulary of Roman villas a "casino" is simply a small house of delight, a pleasure pavilion built inside the park to host parties, rest, outdoor games, receptions in the good season. The great Roman families, the Borghese above all, dotted their gardens with these minor buildings, satellites of the main villa, each with its own function. The Casino delle Rose was one of them, and the name says it: around it there were roses, there was a rose garden, there was the most cared-for and fragrant part of the garden.

The building that we see today housing the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese has a sober, elegant structure, typical of villa architecture: compact plan, well-proportioned rooms, a close relationship with the greenery around it. Over the centuries the Casino delle Rose has changed use several times, as happened to almost all the minor buildings of Villa Borghese, which from their private beginnings passed, with the public acquisition of the park, to a new life in the service of the city. Around the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese you can read the layers: the nineteenth-century parties, the gardeners who tended the roses, then the long twentieth century in which Villa Borghese becomes everyone's park, and finally this recent and happy vocation, the cinematic one.

The fact that the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese lives inside a historic building and not inside a purpose-built structure changes everything. The rooms had to adapt to the existing spaces, which gives every screening a particular flavor: you are not in an anonymous black box, you are inside a room with a history, with windows that look onto the greenery, with ceilings that are not the standard ones of multiplexes. It is a compromise, certainly, but it is a compromise that adds instead of taking away. Every time I enter the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese I feel this double nature: the old place and the modern machine of cinema, one inside the other.

Why it is called Casino delle Rose and what the rose garden has to do with the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

The rose garden is the reason for the name, and it is a theme that keeps coming back at Villa Borghese. Rome has an ancient relationship with roses: not far away, on the Aventine, there is the famous Roseto Comunale that bursts into color in May. And inside Villa Borghese the memory of roses is also preserved by this name, the Casino delle Rose, which the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese now carries like a dowry. Don't expect, on arriving, a sea of blooming roses: the garden around the building has changed many times. But the name remains, and the sense of a place that was designed for beauty, for fragrance, for the pleasure of the eyes remains. That today there is cinema here, which is another form of pleasure for the eyes, is a nice continuity.

This much must be said about the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese: the place was not born for cinema, and for exactly that reason cinema here is not an industry, it is a gentle guest. The Casino delle Rose has welcomed cinema the way it once welcomed receptions, with that same air of an open villa and cultured leisure. It is a subtle but decisive difference from the commercial temples of the multiplex.

Villa Borghese all around: the park that embraces the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

You can't tell the story of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese without telling the story of Villa Borghese, because the park is the frame, the courtyard, the natural foyer of every screening. Villa Borghese was born in the early seventeenth century as the suburban villa of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, one of the most extraordinary collectors and patrons Rome has known. Scipione wanted a garden of delights outside the walls, and he filled it with sculptures, fountains, groves, buildings, with that Baroque magnificence that you can still breathe today. Over the centuries the villa was enlarged, redesigned in more landscape-style, English-style forms, and finally, in the early twentieth century, acquired by the State and handed over to the City of Rome, becoming the great public park that we know.

The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese sits inside this long story as a recent and lively chapter. Coming out of a screening, the visitor finds themselves immersed in one of the most beautiful landscapes in Rome: avenues of plane trees and stone pines, lawns where families spread their blankets, the distant noise of children playing, the rickshaw and bicycle rentals, lovers on the benches. It is a setting that no other cinema in the world can offer in the same way. When I say that an evening at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese doesn't end with the closing credits, I mean exactly this: it ends with a walk in the park, maybe all the way to the Pincio terrace to watch the sunset over Rome.

Villa Borghese is also a catalog of wonders that is worth knowing before or after the visit to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese. There is the Galleria Borghese, with the Caravaggios and Bernini's marbles. There is the Bioparco, the old zoological garden. There is the little lake with the Temple of Aesculapius where you go boating. There is Piazza di Siena, the grassy arena where the horse show is held. There is the Pincio with its panoramic terrace. There is even a small cinema inside the cinema, the Cinema dei Piccoli, which is the smallest in the world. All this is a few minutes' walk from the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, and it means a day here can be as full as few others.

From Scipione Borghese's private villa to everyone's park: the long road to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

It is worth stressing that the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is the fruit of a very long democratization. At the beginning Villa Borghese was the private garden of a very powerful family, a place where the cardinal's guests, the protected artists and the friends of the house came in. Then, century after century, that fence opened up. The park became everyone's. And inside a building that once hosted the parties of the few, today anyone can walk in to see a film, often without paying anything. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is, if you think about it, the end point of this trajectory: from the privilege of the few to the shared pleasure of the many. It isn't rhetoric: it is exactly what I feel every time I see a room full of ordinary people enjoying a free series in a hall that was once reserved for the aristocracy.

2004: when the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is born

The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, as an institution, is recent. It opens its doors in 2004, on the initiative of the City of Rome, with the precise idea of giving the city a permanent place dedicated to cinema that was not a commercial theater but a cultural space: a place to watch films, meet filmmakers, rediscover the classics, follow the series, host the festivals. Rome, the city that invented Cinecittà and gave the world the most glorious season of Italian cinema, did not until then have a symbolic "house" of cinema open to the public and set in its best-loved park. With 2004 that gap is filled, and the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese becomes this: the common house of film lovers.

I find it significant that the opening of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese falls in those years. It is a period when Rome is rethinking its cultural vocation: shortly afterward the great Festa del Cinema will be born, the Auditorium Parco della Musica will have just been inaugurated, the city is investing in public spaces for culture. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese fits into this movement as the most intimate and everyday piece: not the spectacular event of one week a year, but continuous programming, the room open every day, cinema as a habit and not as an exception.

Over the years the management of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese has passed through different bodies and appointments, as happens with public cultural spaces, but the underlying mission has stayed firm: screenings, meetings, series, support for film culture. I'll spare you the bureaucratic list of the bodies that have run it over time, because it isn't what matters to someone walking in to see a film. What matters is that, from 2004 to today, the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese has kept doing the same thing: keeping a light on in the dark of the theater, for anyone who wants to come in.

An institution of the City: the public vocation of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

The public character is the DNA of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese. It is not a private business aiming at the profit of the single screening. It is a cultural service that the city offers to its citizens and its guests. This explains the much-loved choice of many free screenings. It explains the brave programming that puts alongside the great classics experimental cinema, documentaries, distant cinematographies. It explains the meetings with directors, the film lessons, the book presentations. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese doesn't have to fill the room at all costs with the blockbuster of the moment: it can afford to propose, to educate, to surprise. It is a precious freedom, and you can feel it in the quality of what it programs.

The rooms of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese: Sala Cinecittà, Sala Fellini, Sala Volontè and the open-air theater

Let's come to the rooms, because that is where the rite takes place. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese has more than one screening space, and each has its own character. The largest room, the Sala Cinecittà with 118 seats, is the one that hosts the most important screenings, the previews, the meetings with guests. It is a room of good size, well kept, where cinema is seen as it should be, with projection and sound up to the task. Then there are the Sala Fellini, with 64 seats, and the Sala Gian Maria Volontè, with 46, smaller in size, perfect for the series, for documentaries, for the more niche events where the audience is that of the devoted. The names of the rooms refer to the Cinecittà studios, to Federico Fellini and to Gian Maria Volontè.

But the room everyone falls in love with is the third, the one with no ceiling: the open-air summer arena of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, the Teatro all'aperto Ettore Scola, with 300 seats. In the good season, when Roman evenings become warm and long, cinema comes out of the walls and is projected under the sky, in the garden, among the trees. Sitting outdoors, with the evening air, the scents of the park, the big screen lighting up as darkness falls, is an experience that has a charm all its own in Rome. The open-air arena of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is one of the reasons why so many Romans, when summer comes, come back here instead of escaping to the sea: because cinema under the stars, inside Villa Borghese, is a luxury that costs almost nothing.

Each of these spaces contributes to making the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese a living and changing organism. On winter days life concentrates in the indoor rooms, warm, sheltered. In summer it moves outside, to the arena. This seasonal breathing is part of the identity of the place. It is a cinema that follows the seasons of the park that contains it, and changes its face several times over the year.

The Sala Cinecittà: the heart of the screenings at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

The Sala Cinecittà is where the heart of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese beats. It is here that the events that make the news happen: the previews, the screenings with a guest, the meetings in which the director or the actor sits in front of the audience and talks about the film just seen. There are evenings when, with the lights back on, the filmmaker takes the microphone and for half an hour a rare thing happens: the audience in dialogue with the person who made the work. In a multiplex it almost never happens, at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese it is almost the norm. The Sala Cinecittà is designed for this: not only for watching, but for listening and for talking.

The Sala Fellini, the Sala Volontè and the other spaces of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

The two smallest rooms, the Fellini and the Volontè, are the domain of film series and cinephiles. That's where the cycles dedicated to one director, the retrospectives, the documentaries that never find room in commercial theaters, the works of national cinemas that rarely reach us, are shown. The smaller size creates a particular complicity: the audience of the small rooms is the one that knows why it came, that chose that precise film, that will stay until the end of the credits. Alongside the rooms, the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese also has spaces for meetings, presentations and events, because its vocation includes, besides screenings, film culture in the round, with books, exhibitions, debates.

The Open-Air Summer Arena: Cinema Under the Stars at the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese

The open-air arena deserves a chapter of its own because it is, for many, the real signature of the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese. Open-air cinema has a very long Roman tradition: in the city's summers, when the heat empties the closed theaters, the arenas under the stars become the natural way to see films. The Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese brings this tradition inside Villa Borghese, into its garden, and ennobles it with the setting. I assure you that watching a film sitting outdoors, with the umbrella pines standing out black against the sky and the first stars appearing as the opening titles roll, is an emotion that stays with you. It's the right kind of evening for anyone who happens to be in Rome in summer and wants something different from the usual dinner in the center.

The Free Screenings: the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese's Gift to the City

If there is one thing that makes the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese different from any other cinema in Rome, it is the number of free screenings it offers. Not all screenings are free, and the schedule changes continually, but being free is one of the distinctive marks of the place. It is a precise political and cultural choice: to make quality cinema accessible to everyone, without economic barriers. Someone who couldn't afford a ticket, a student, a retiree, someone who was simply strolling in the park and saw the poster, can walk in and sit down in the room. This openness is, in our judgment, the most beautiful thing about the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese.

Being free also changes the makeup of the audience. In the rooms of the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese you don't find only professional cinephiles: you find a social mix that is rarer in paid cinemas. There are the old enthusiasts who have been coming for decades, there are young people, there are families, there are curious tourists, there are the elderly of the neighborhood. It is an audience that commercial cinema has partly lost, and that here finds a reason to come back to the theater. In an age when everybody watches films at home, alone, on the couch, the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese defends the old and irreplaceable idea of cinema as a collective experience, in a room, with other strangers, in the dark.

Careful, though: free doesn't mean "anyone can walk in without thinking about it." The rooms have a capacity, and the seats run out. For the most requested events at the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese it's best to find out in advance, arrive early and allow for a line. I talk about it further on, in the practical advice section, because it's the classic thing nobody tells you and that makes the difference between a successful evening and an evening left empty-handed in front of a room that is already full.

The Series and Cycles: How the Programming of the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese Is Built

The programming of the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese is rich, layered and constantly moving. It is a dense calendar, with events almost every day, built by pairings and cycles, instead of a schedule renewed twice a year. The series are the backbone of this programming: you pick a director, a theme, a genre, an anniversary, and dedicate a run of screenings to it. So, in one season, you can follow a retrospective on a great director, a cycle dedicated to an actor, a themed series, a run of documentaries, a tribute to a foreign cinema. It's the best way to go deeper, to build a serious and not random film culture.

I particularly love the way the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese holds the old and the new together. On one side the great classics of Italian and international cinema, shown again on the big screen the way they should be seen. On the other, contemporary cinema, first films, documentaries, the films that struggle to exist in the commercial circuits. This duality is precious: it lets you rediscover a masterpiece of the 1960s and, the next evening, see a documentary just released with the director in the room. The Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese is a bridge between the eras of cinema, and walking across it is instructive as well as pleasant.

Retrospectives, Tributes and Cinema of the Real at the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese

The retrospectives are the jewel in the crown. Devoting a series of evenings to a single director lets you follow his or her evolution, understand how a style forms and transforms, see films we may have known only by name. At the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese the retrospectives are often accompanied by introductions, by critics and scholars who put the works in context, by materials that help you read better what you are about to see. Alongside the retrospectives there is great attention to cinema of the real, to documentary, a genre that in Italy struggles to find theaters and that here instead has a home. This look at the real, at the themes of society, at current events, is another trait that makes the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese a civic place even before a cultural one.

Cinema for Kids and Neighborhood Series at the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese

Then there is the whole part aimed at the youngest and at families. Villa Borghese is the park of Roman families par excellence, and the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese takes that into account, with offerings designed for children and teenagers, with afternoon screenings, with educational initiatives. Taking a child to see a film in a theater, in a setting like this, immersed in the park, is a formative experience worth much more than the usual hour in front of a screen at home. The Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese sows a love of film from a young age, and this is perhaps its most far-sighted investment: tomorrow's audience is built today, in these rooms.

Meetings with Directors and Actors: the Added Value of the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese

One of the reasons I always come back gladly to the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese is the meetings with filmmakers. There's nothing like seeing a film and then hearing the person who made it talk about it. At the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese this practice is at home: directors, actors, screenwriters, directors of photography sit in front of the audience and talk about their work, answer questions, reveal behind-the-scenes stories, discuss choices. It is the kind of experience that turns a viewer into an enthusiast, because it makes you understand that behind every shot there are decisions, effort, thought.

Over time there have been memorable meetings in which great names of Italian cinema told anecdotes you don't find in books, and meetings with young filmmakers, excited, at their first work, supported by a warm audience. This variety is typical of the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese: here the established master and the newcomer have the same right to speak, the same microphone, the same attentive audience. It is a place where cinema tells its story without excessive hierarchies, with that mix of respect and familiarity that is typical of Rome.

The meetings also make the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese a crossroads. Over the years, a great many figures of Italian and international cinema have passed through here to present a film, receive a tribute, give a film lesson, take part in a debate. Sitting in that room means, potentially, finding yourself a few meters from someone whose work you have loved. It is a closeness that in Rome, city of cinema, still has a deep meaning.

The Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese and the Rome Film Festival

You can't talk about the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese without talking about the Festa del Cinema di Roma, the capital's great film event that animates the city every autumn. The Festa del Cinema di Roma has its center of gravity at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, the imposing complex designed by Renzo Piano in the Flaminio neighborhood, but its network of rooms and events extends to several places in the city, and the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese is part of this festival ecosystem. In the days of the Festa, these spaces buzz with a special energy, with screenings, meetings, events that bring the ferment of the festival into the park.

The relationship between the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese and the city's great film events is one of complementarity. The Auditorium and the Festa del Cinema di Roma represent the spectacular, media-driven, concentrated moment. The Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese represents daily continuity, the programming of the whole year, the permanent outpost. One does not exclude the other, indeed they feed each other: the Festa brings audience and attention, and the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese gathers and cultivates that attention in the following months, keeping the passion alive away from the spotlights. This is how a city builds a real film culture: with the big events and with the small rituals of every day.

The Auditorium Parco della Musica and the Roman Cinema Network Around the Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese

The Auditorium Parco della Musica deserves a mention because it is the other great cultural hub of contemporary Rome, and together with the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese it draws a geography of the city's cinema and music. Designed by Renzo Piano and opened at the start of the 2000s, the Auditorium, with its scarab-shaped halls, has become the symbol of the Rome that invests in culture. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, older as a building but younger as an institution, is the green, intimate face of this same vocation. Together they tell the story of a city that, beyond its ancient glories, still knows how to build living places for art and for the public.

Rome, city of cinema: the context in which the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese lives

To fully understand the meaning of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, you have to remember that we are in Rome, and Rome has a bond with cinema that few other cities in the world can claim. This is where Cinecittà is, the studios founded in the 1930s that were for decades the "Hollywood on the Tiber," where epics and masterpieces were shot, where directors like Fellini worked, where legendary sets were built. This is where neorealism was born and grew, the season that revolutionized world cinema after the war, taking the camera into the streets, among real people. And here, between the 1950s and 1960s, the Dolce Vita exploded, the image of a cosmopolitan, nocturnal, elegant and disenchanted Rome, handed down to eternity by Fellini's film and by the scene at the Trevi Fountain.

The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is the symbolic heir of all this history. It is not a production studio, it is not a set, but it is the place where that memory is kept and handed down, where the films that made Rome great return to the big screen for new generations. When a classic of Italian cinema plays in a theater of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, you are not just watching a film: you are performing an act of collective memory, you are keeping a heritage alive. That is why I consider the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese not a simple movie theater, but a piece of the city's cultural identity.

Cinecittà, neorealism and the Dolce Vita: the roots that feed the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

Cinecittà is Rome's dream factory, and its history is intertwined with that of all Italian cinema. Founded in the 1930s, after the war it became the crossroads where Italian and international productions met, where the great directors built their worlds. Neorealism, with its films shot in the street, with non-professional actors, with stories of ordinary people, brought postwar Italy to the screens of the world and influenced generations of filmmakers everywhere. The Dolce Vita then handed down an indelible image of Rome: that of a city both beautiful and feverish, a worldly and melancholy capital. All these seasons are the living material of the film series that, over time, the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese has offered its audience. Sitting in a theater here often means rewinding the tape of this history and reliving its moments on the big screen.

The greats of Italian cinema tied to Rome and to the memory of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

Rome has given cinema a host of masters whose names are legend. Federico Fellini, with his dreamlike, baroque Rome. Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica, fathers of neorealism. Marcello Mastroianni and Anna Magnani, faces that embodied the spirit of the city. And then many others, directors, actors, screenwriters, directors of photography, who made Italian cinema great. It is no coincidence that the square the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese faces is named after Marcello Mastroianni. For the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese these names are not simple historical references: they are presences that come back again and again in the film series, the tributes, the screenings. It is as if the place breathed through them.

Villa Borghese as a garden of wonders surrounding the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

I come back to the park, because a visit to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese without a walk in Villa Borghese would be incomplete. The park is a world, and every corner has its story. The Galleria Borghese, housed in the villa's Casino Nobile, is one of the most precious treasure chests of art in the world: it holds Bernini's sculptures, Caravaggio's canvases, masterpieces by Titian and Raphael, in a building that is itself a masterpiece. Anyone visiting the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese has, a few minutes' walk away, one of the most extraordinary museums in Italy, and it would be a shame not to know it.

Not far away is the Bioparco, Rome's old zoological garden, a much-loved destination for children. There is the little lake of Villa Borghese, with the small neoclassical temple dedicated to Aesculapius reflected in the water, where you can rent rowboats and spend half an hour of absolute quiet. There is Piazza di Siena, the grassy amphitheater set among the pines, where a historic horse show is held every year. There is the Pincio, the terrace with one of the most famous views of Rome, with the dome of St. Peter's on the horizon and Piazza del Popolo at your feet. All these places form a crown for the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, and a well-planned day can easily combine the museum, the park, the lake and the evening screening.

The Galleria Borghese and the Bioparco: the illustrious neighbors of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

The Galleria Borghese is the most aristocratic neighbor of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese. Art lovers can't miss the appointment with Canova's "Paolina Borghese," with Bernini's "Apollo and Daphne" and "The Rape of Proserpina," with the Caravaggios and their raw, modern gaze. A visit to the Galleria requires a reservation and has limited entry, so it needs to be planned in time, but it's a stop I recommend to anyone who has more than half a day in Rome. The Bioparco, for its part, is the more festive neighbor: a historic zoo that is also a conservation center, ideal for anyone visiting the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese with children who wants to turn the day into a complete adventure.

The Cinema dei Piccoli, the smallest cinema in the world next to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

There's a curiosity tied to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese: inside Villa Borghese, not far away, there is another cinema, a tiny one, that holds a world record. It is the Cinema dei Piccoli, recognized as the smallest cinema in the world, a small wooden structure set in the greenery, with a few dozen seats, born almost a century ago as a cinema for children and now a beloved institution of the city. Having the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese and the smallest cinema in the world in the same park is one of those rhymes only Villa Borghese can offer: the big and the tiniest, side by side, both devoted to the same art. For an enthusiast it is almost a double pilgrimage.

The lake, the Pincio and Piazza di Siena: the walk in the area of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

The ideal walk in the area of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese touches a few fixed points of the park. The lake, with its small temple and its rowboats, is the most romantic spot in the park. I always go there gladly before an afternoon screening, to enjoy a little calm on the water. The Pincio is instead the evening stop: its panoramic terrace, at sunset, offers a show over Rome that no film will ever surpass, and leaving an evening screening at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese it is within walking distance. Piazza di Siena, with its grassy basin surrounded by stone pines, is the most solemn place, the setting of the historic horse show and of big events. In the area of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, in short, there is enough to fill a whole day without ever leaving the park.

How to get to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

Getting to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is easier than its secluded position might suggest. The most convenient entrance to Villa Borghese is Porta Pinciana, at the top of Via Vittorio Veneto, the street made famous by the Dolce Vita itself. From there you enter the park and, following the avenues, in a few minutes on foot you reach the Casino delle Rose and the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese. Alternatively you can enter from the Pincio, climbing up from Piazza del Popolo, or from the villa's other entrances, but Porta Pinciana remains the most direct reference point.

By public transportation, the metro station closest to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is Spagna, on line A, from which a pedestrian route leads to the park. The Flaminio stop, at the other end of the villa, is also a valid access, especially if you are coming from the area of Piazza del Popolo. Many bus lines serve the perimeter of Villa Borghese, with stops along Via Veneto and in the surrounding streets. It's best to arrive on foot or by public transportation: the car in this part of Rome is more a problem than a solution, and the pleasure of approaching the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese by walking through the park is an integral part of the experience.

One recommendation: allow for the time the park takes. Villa Borghese is big, and the distance between an entrance and the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, however short, has to be walked calmly, especially if it rains or if it's very hot. Bring comfortable shoes, and if you come in summer for the outdoor arena, keep in mind that at sunset, under the trees, the air can cool down: a light sweatshirt never hurts. They are small details, but they are exactly what a proper guide tells you before setting out.

The surroundings of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese: what to see before and after the film

The surroundings of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese are a concentrate of Rome. Leaving toward Porta Pinciana you go down to Via Veneto, the street of the great cafés and historic hotels, the heart of Fellini-era high society. A little farther down you reach Piazza Barberini, with Bernini's Triton Fountain, and from there the center is a stone's throw away. Toward the Pincio, instead, you go down to Piazza del Popolo, one of the most scenic squares in the city, with its twin churches and the Egyptian obelisk. And of course, on the other side of the park, there are Piazza di Spagna and the Trinità dei Monti steps. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is, in short, set in one of the most beautiful and central areas of Rome: whichever direction you take leaving the park, you will come across wonders.

The audience and the atmosphere of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

Every place has its atmosphere, and that of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is unmistakable. It is a cultured but not snobbish atmosphere, passionate but not sectarian, Roman in the best sense of the word: welcoming, a little informal, warm. The audience is varied, as I said, and this variety creates a particular climate. On the nights of the big screenings you can feel the anticipation. On the afternoons of the more niche film series there is the concentration of the regulars. In summer, at the arena, there is the relaxed cheerfulness of evenings outdoors. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese does not have the sterility of the multiplexes nor the snootiness of certain elite clubs: it has the warmth of a public place where people come because they love cinema.

It's worth observing the small rituals of the audience of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese. Some people arrive early to get the right seat, some stop to chat about the film on the way out, some comment in a whisper during the screening (and some shush them, as is only right). There is the community of regulars, the ones who recognize each other, who greet each other, who have been coming for years. And there is the continuous turnover of new faces, curious people who discover the place and come back. This vitality is the health of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese: a place of culture is alive as long as its audience inhabits it, and this audience truly inhabits it.

Why the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is a model of public culture

The civic value, let's say, of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese deserves a few words. In an age when culture is often reduced to paid entertainment, when films are consumed alone on platforms, when theaters are closing, the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese defends a different idea: culture as a common good, cinema as a shared and accessible experience, public space as a meeting place. It is a model that should be studied and imitated, not just admired.

The strength of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese lies in the combination of ingredients: a historic building made available to the city, a magnificent park as its setting, quality programming, the choice of free admission for many screenings, openness to all audiences, dialogue with the filmmakers. None of these ingredients, on its own, would make a difference. It is their sum that creates something rare. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese shows that investing in public culture is not a waste, but a way to make a city more beautiful, more civil, more livable. Every full theater here is a small proof that the model works.

Cinema as a collective experience: the wager of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

The great wager of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is to keep cinema alive as a collective experience in a time that pushes in the opposite direction. Watching a film in a theater, in the dark, with other viewers, is a different experience from watching it at home: there is the concentration imposed by the place, there is the shared reaction of the audience, there is the respect for the work that comes from the context. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese defends all this. Every time a theater fills up for a free screening, it shows that the audience is still there, that the desire for shared cinema is not dead, that all it takes is to offer quality and accessibility for people to come back to the theater. It is a lesson that goes beyond cinema.

The seasons of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese: a year at the Casino delle Rose

The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese lives by the seasons, and it's worth recounting their cycle. Autumn is perhaps the most intense moment: with the return from vacation the dense programming resumes, the season of the city's festivals and film events arrives, the indoor theaters fill up. Winter is the season of quiet cinephilia: it's cold outside, the park is bare and almost empty, and inside the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese you stay warm watching retrospectives and film series, with that special pleasure of winter cinema.

Spring awakens Villa Borghese, the lawns turn green again, and the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese starts to look outside, preparing the transition to the open air. Summer is the great season of the arena: cinema leaves the walls, films are screened under the stars, and Roman evenings find in the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese one of their best-loved appointments. This annual rhythm, marked by the seasons of the park, gives the place a breath that city cinemas don't have: the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese changes with the nature surrounding it, and following it for a whole year is like following the calendar of Rome itself.

The Roman summer and the outdoor cinema of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

Summer deserves one more word, because it is the season in which the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese shows its character at its best. Roman summers are long and hot, the city partly empties out, and those who stay look for the cool of the evening and for outdoor spaces. Outdoor cinema is the answer, and the arena of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese sits inside the garden, with the pines surrounding the chairs. Sitting there, with the darkness slowly falling, the pines standing out, the big screen lighting up, is one of those moments when Rome in summer repays you for all its heat. I recommend to anyone spending the summer in Rome to treat themselves to at least one evening like this at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese: it's cheap, it's beautiful, it's unforgettable.

A place for enthusiasts and the curious: who should visit the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

Who should go to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese? The short answer is: anyone. But let's spell it out. The cinephile has to go, obviously, because here he finds programming that no commercial theater offers him, retrospectives, documentaries, meetings with filmmakers. The curious tourist has to go, looking for a Rome different from the mass-tour one, a cultural, real Rome, the Romans' Rome. The family has to go, since in Villa Borghese they already find a thousand things to do and can add a screening. The couple has to go, because an evening at the summer arena of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is among the most romantic that Rome can offer.

And above all, anyone who has never been and doesn't know what they're missing has to go. Because the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is one of those places that Romans themselves sometimes neglect, taking it for granted, and that instead deserves to be visited much more. Anyone who arrives for the first time reacts almost always the same way: amazement that such a place exists, gratitude for having discovered it, a promise to come back. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese has this effect: once you've gotten to know it, it becomes part of your emotional map of Rome.

The ritual of the dark theater at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

I'd like to stop for a moment on something apparently obvious, but which at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese takes on a particular flavor: the ritual of the dark theater. Entering a movie theater is a small ceremony that we repeat without thinking, and yet it is full of ancient gestures. You pass from the brightness of the day, or from the light of the park, to the gradual darkness of the theater. You look for your seat. You wait, in the murmur, for the lights to go down. And then, in the silence that falls, the screen lights up. At the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese this passage has extra force, because outside there is not the noisy city but the green of Villa Borghese. The contrast between the bright park and the dark theater makes the ritual even sharper, almost solemn.

I believe part of the appeal of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese lies precisely in this threshold. In the multiplexes of shopping malls, cinema is an appendage of shopping, one activity among many, and the threshold between outside and inside is weak. Not here. Here, to reach the theater you have crossed a historic garden, you have walked under the pines, you have left the traffic behind. When you finally sit down in the dark of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, you have already made a small journey, and you are ready to watch with more attention. The place prepares the gaze. It's a subtle thing, but anyone who goes to the movies with love recognizes it immediately.

The silence of the park and the sound of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

There is a sensory detail I love, and it concerns sound. Villa Borghese, though in the heart of Rome, is a relatively quiet island: the traffic fades, what remains are the sounds of the park, the wind in the branches, distant voices. This natural silence is the perfect frame for the sound of cinema. At the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, especially at the outdoor arena, the film's sound stands out against the quiet background of the garden, and the effect is very special: the music of a soundtrack spreading among the trees, the actors' voices echoing under the sky. It is an acoustic experience that no closed theater in the city can offer. The silence of the park is, if you think about it, one of the secret ingredients of the magic of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese.

Cinema and memory: what the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese preserves

A cinema like this doesn't just screen: it preserves. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is, in its own way, a place of memory, a living archive of cinema. Every retrospective is an act of conservation. Every classic shown again on the big screen is a fragment of heritage being handed down. Every meeting with a filmmaker is a testimony being collected. In an age when films pile up by the millions in digital libraries and get lost in the abundance, a place that selects, proposes, puts in context and shows films on the big screen does precious cultural work. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is this work made into a place.

The memory it preserves includes, next to the great masterpieces, the minor and fragile kind: forgotten films, works by little-known filmmakers, documentaries destined to disappear, distant cinematographies that rarely reach us. Bringing them back to the theater, in front of an audience, means snatching them from oblivion, at least for one evening. This vocation for rediscovery is one of the aspects I appreciate most about the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese: it doesn't chase only what is already famous, but digs, proposes, surprises. Going there often means seeing something you would never see elsewhere, and for an enthusiast that is the greatest gift.

The big screen against the small screen: the cultural battle of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

We live in the age of the small screen: we watch films on the TV, on the computer, even on the phone, often distracted, often interrupting, often alone. The big screen, the real one, the one in the theater, has become a minority experience, almost a luxury. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese stubbornly defends the big screen, and does so by making it accessible to everyone. Seeing a film at its real size, with the sound enveloping you, without the possibility of pausing it or looking at your phone, immersed in the dark, is a radically different experience from watching at home. It is cinema as its authors conceived it. Every screening at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is, in this sense, a small act of cultural resistance, and those who take part are part of it.

The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese on the emotional map of Rome

There are places in Rome that appear in every guidebook and places that live in the hearts of those who live there. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese belongs to the second category, even though it would deserve to be in the first too. It doesn't show up on the mass tours, next to the Colosseum and the Trevi Fountain. It is a place you have to win over, that you discover, that becomes part of your personal Rome once you've spent time there. For many Romans who love cinema it is a second home. For many attentive visitors it is the revelation of a different Rome, cultured and alive, far from the clichés.

On the map of Rome the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese holds a precise spot: it is the place where cinema meets the park, inside the city. It is the right address for anyone looking for a non-obvious tip on Rome, for those who have already seen the great wonders and look for something more intimate and true. And that bond doesn't wear out, it is renewed with every return. A fine place of culture is like that: you never exhaust it, because it changes with you and with the seasons. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, for me, is one of these inexhaustible places, and I hope that after reading these pages it becomes one for you too.

A curiosity about the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

The curiosity I like best concerns the name of the building that houses the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese: the Casino delle Rose. Many people, hearing "casino," immediately think of gambling, of gaming rooms, and are baffled by the idea of a cinema inside a "casino." In reality, as already explained, in the historical vocabulary of Italian villas "casino" is the diminutive of "casa": it indicates a small leisure building inside a park, a pavilion of delights. The Casino delle Rose was therefore the little house of the roses, the pavilion immersed in the rose garden. It's a small lesson in old Italian that I always give to those who visit the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, and that usually leaves a mark.

Then there is the toponymic curiosity, just as lovely: the square the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese faces is named after Marcello Mastroianni, one of the greatest actors of Italian cinema, the face of the Dolce Vita, the melancholy and ironic star who embodied the spirit of Rome on screen. That Rome's cinema house stands in a square dedicated to Mastroianni is a choice with meaning: the place is put under his protection. That name on the plaque, on arriving at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, is the best welcome possible.

Something nobody tells you about the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

What nobody tells you about the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is that the free admission to many screenings doesn't mean at all "anyone can walk in, there's plenty of room." Quite the opposite. Precisely because it's free, and precisely because the quality is high, the most requested events fill up fast, and the theaters have limited capacity. It happens that people who show up at the last minute, sure of finding a seat, are left outside in front of an already full theater. The practical advice is: always find out in advance about the programming and any access arrangements, and for special events arrive well ahead of time. The "free" of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is a gift, but the best gifts have a line in front of them.

There is a second aspect that almost nobody considers: the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is inside a park that closes, and the park has its hours. Villa Borghese has its rhythms, and moving through the park in the evening, in the dark, requires a minimum of attention to orientation and hours. It's not dangerous, but it's different from leaving a theater onto a lit street. Knowing in advance which entrance you came in from and which one it's best to leave by, having in mind the route to the stop or to the center, are precautions that make the evening at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese perfect instead of confused. This too, usually, nobody tells you.

The advice I give you for visiting the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

My advice is not to reduce the visit to the screening alone, but to build half a day on it, or better still a whole day. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese gives its best when you live it inside the rhythm of Villa Borghese. One possible sequence: arrive in the afternoon, enter the park from Porta Pinciana, walk to the lake, maybe half an hour in a boat, then climb to the Pincio for the sunset over Rome. At that point, with the darkness falling, head toward the Casino delle Rose for the evening screening, better still in summer at the outdoor arena. On the way out, a walk toward Via Veneto or Piazza del Popolo to end the evening. A day like this, built on the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, is among the most beautiful Rome can give, and it costs very little.

The second piece of advice is to study the programming in advance and choose carefully. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese offers many different things, from the great classics to documentaries to meetings with filmmakers: choose according to your tastes, but also try to dare, to see something you normally wouldn't. It's precisely in a place like this, where often you don't pay for a ticket, that it makes sense to take a risk, to explore, to let yourself be surprised. The third piece of advice, always valid: comfortable shoes, a little time to spare, and the willingness to get involved. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese rewards those who visit it in the right spirit, that of someone who is in no hurry and loves cinema.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely mentioned

The well-known yet rarely mentioned fact is that Rome is, historically, one of the world capitals of cinema, and that the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is the natural heir of this glory. Everyone knows about Cinecittà, everyone has the Dolce Vita and the Trevi Fountain in mind, everyone knows Fellini at least by name. But few connect this great memory to a concrete, living place, open to the public today, where that memory is kept and handed down. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is exactly that place: the point where the glorious history of Roman cinema stops being only nostalgia and becomes present experience, programming, full theaters, films returning to the big screen.

There is a second well-known but little-pondered fact: Villa Borghese was born as a collection, as a place of art and beauty, by the will of a great patron. That today, inside that same park, there is an institution dedicated to cinema, the art of the twentieth century par excellence, is a splendid continuity of vocation. Cardinal Scipione Borghese collected sculptures and paintings. The city of Rome, four centuries later, collects and shows films in the same garden. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese carries on, by other means, the same ancient mission of the place: gathering beauty and offering it to the eyes of those who look. Few things, if you think about it, are so coherent.

The right photo to take at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

The right photo to take at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is not a close-up of the sign, but the building of the Casino delle Rose seen from afar, framed by the green of Villa Borghese. Stand at the far end of the lawn or the avenue, wait for the right light, the golden light of late afternoon is perfect, and frame the nineteenth-century building with the trees that surround it. It's the image that best tells the soul of the place: the cinema that lives in a historic villa inside a park. In that photo there is all the contrast that makes the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese special: not an anonymous box, but a building with a history, immersed in nature.

If you come in summer, the photo to steal is another one: the outdoor arena at the moment the screen lights up, with the audience seated and the sky turning from blue to black, the stone pines like dark silhouettes at the edges of the frame. It's a difficult photo, because of the low light, but if you manage it, it captures the magic of cinema under the stars at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese. One last idea, more intimate: leaving an evening screening, go up to the nearby Pincio and photograph illuminated Rome from the terrace. It is not the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, but it is its perfect visual epilogue, the city spread out at your feet after a film.

Some important events that happened here in history

The history of the place we now call the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is long and layered. The founding event, for its cinematic life, is the opening as the Casa del Cinema in 2004, on the initiative of the Municipality of Rome: from that moment the Casino delle Rose stops being just a historic building of the park and becomes a living cultural institution. Since then, the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese has seen hundreds and hundreds of screenings, film series, retrospectives, meetings with filmmakers follow one another, which together make up the real daily "history" of the place: not a single great event, but the sum of many evenings of shared cinema.

On a broader level, the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese has taken its place in the recent history of Roman culture, the one marked by the birth of the city's great cultural hubs, by the revival of attention to cinema with the Rome Film Festival, by the return of outdoor cinema as a tradition of Roman summers. Every time the capital's film event turns on its spotlights, the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese takes part in its own way in this great collective story. But, I repeat, the events that really count here are the small, repeated ones: the theater filling up, the director taking the microphone, the classic returning to the screen, the audience applauding in the dark. The history of the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is made of these small great events.

Going back in time, even before cinema, the Casino delle Rose went through the long history of Villa Borghese: the Borghese family's private villa, its transformation into a public park at the start of the twentieth century with the passage to the State and then to the Municipality of Rome, the changes in use of its minor buildings. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is the latest chapter of this centuries-long story, and knowing what came before helps to understand it better: a building born for private delight, become everyone's, and finally a house of cinema open to the city.

Who has passed through the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

Since it has existed, the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese has been crossed by a crowd of cinema protagonists. Given its nature as a place of meetings, presentations, tributes and lessons on cinema, a great many personalities of Italian and international cinema have passed through these theaters: directors presenting their films, actors receiving a tribute, young filmmakers with their first work, established masters who came to tell the story of a career. I don't want to attribute to the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese specific appearances that I can't document precisely, but it is in the very nature of the place to be a crossroads of known and lesser-known faces of cinema.

But "who has passed through" the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, in the deepest sense, are the greats of cinema who continue to pass through it by way of their works. When a Fellini film plays in the theater, in a certain sense Fellini is there. When a masterpiece of neorealism returns to the screen, Rossellini and De Sica are present. When the face of Marcello Mastroianni appears, who gives his name to the square in front of the entrance, or that of Anna Magnani, those giants come to inhabit the theater again. The Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese is, in this sense, a place crowded with luminous ghosts: the whole history of cinema passes through it, screening after screening.

And then the audience has passed through, passes through and will pass through: Romans of every age, students, cinephiles, tourists, families, lovers, the elderly of the neighborhood. They are, in the end, the true protagonists who pass through the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, the ones who give it life every day by filling its theaters. A place of culture is not made only by the big names that cross it, but by the anonymous and faithful crowd that inhabits it. And this crowd, at the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese, is there, comes back, and loves the place. It is the reason why, year after year, the light in these theaters keeps turning on in the dark.

Quick questions about the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

Where is the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese

The Casa del Cinema is inside Villa Borghese, in the Casino delle Rose, a nineteenth-century building at the end of a tree-lined avenue. The address is Largo Marcello Mastroianni 1, near the Porta Pinciana entrance, in the upper part of the villa that looks toward the historic center. It doesn't have a sign on a busy street: you get there by walking in the park, among pines and holm oaks, and the building appears at the end of the lawn.

How to get to the Casa del Cinema

The most convenient entrance to Villa Borghese is Porta Pinciana, at the top of Via Vittorio Veneto: from there you follow the avenues and in a few minutes on foot you're at the Casino delle Rose. The closest metro is Spagna, on line A, and Flaminio works too if you're coming from the area of Piazza del Popolo. Several buses stop along Via Veneto. Leave the car behind, since in this area it's more a problem than a solution.

Do you pay to see a film at the Casa del Cinema

It depends. According to the official website the full-price ticket costs €5 and the reduced one €4, while the summer screenings in the outdoor theater and some activities are free until seats run out. Free admission remains one of the features of the place, which is a public institution created by the Municipality of Rome. But not all events are free, and the programming changes constantly: access depends on the individual event. To know if an evening is free or paid, check the program on the official website of the Casa del Cinema every time.

Do you need to book for the free screenings

Free doesn't mean a guaranteed seat. The theaters have limited capacity and the most requested events fill up fast: if you arrive at the last minute you can be left outside in front of an already full theater. Find out in advance about the programming and any access arrangements, and for special events arrive well ahead of time, allowing for the line. Comfortable shoes and some margin on the park's timing help.

When is the best time to go to the Casa del Cinema

Summer is the best-loved season, because the screenings move to the outdoor arena, in the garden, under the pines. Bring a light sweatshirt, because after sunset under the trees the air cools down. Autumn is the most intense period for indoor programming, with the festival season, and winter is the time of retrospectives and film series in the indoor theaters, which according to the official website are now called Sala Cinecittà, Sala Fellini and Sala Gian Maria Volonté.

What is there to see near the Casa del Cinema

You're in the heart of Villa Borghese, so a few minutes' walk away you'll find the Galleria Borghese, which requires a reservation, the Bioparco, the lake with the Aesculapius temple and the rowboats, Piazza di Siena and the Pincio terrace. In the park there is also the Cinema dei Piccoli, recognized as the smallest in the world. A smart move is to stroll to the Pincio for the sunset and then go to the evening screening.

Article written by the editorial team of TourLeaderPro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

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