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6th ~ 16th December 2024
Polo Museale dei Trasporti Astral, Rome
Eight sentimentally significant places for the film director Pietro Germi, in Rome and its surroundings. Narrated 50 years after demise and 110 after birth; through texts written by his firstborn Linda and photographs and music created by me. An intimate and familiar story, mostly unpublished; with the intention of looking behind Germi's public mask and of integrating and in some cases denying the typically made portrait of the director and above all of the man.
Thanks to the testimonies offered by Linda, I visited eight places of the heart for her and Pietro. Photographing the current state (external and – when possible – internal) and recording environmental sounds. The exhibition is hosted by Polo Museale dei Trasporti Astral in Rome, in collaboration with Comitato di Quartiere Piramide-Ostiense. It is staged inside the 404 model tram, which has cinematic references: once in service on the Termini – Cinecittà route, it appeared in Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City.
For each place narrated: a photograph, a piece of music (based on environmental sounds), a text, a title (consisting of a verse taken from poems composed by Pietro for his wife Anna - hence the title of the project, anagram of "Pietro Germi" and meaning: gives you rhymes).
Linda’s name appears in the opening credits of The Railroad Man, dedicated to her. One of Germi’s best-known works, a great display of Rome’s railway and tram system in the early 1950s. The ideal venue for the exhibition is therefore the Polo Museale dei Trasporti Astral: inaugurated in 2004, it displays in the open air historic trains and trams that have been crossing Rome and connecting it to localities in Lazio (Ostia, Viterbo, Fiuggi, Castelli Romani). ti PorGe rime also presents the public with a detailed technical analysis of The Railroad Man by Gennaro Fiorentino, who identifies filmed locations and railway models (clamfer.it/05_treni%20e%20cinema/Ferroviere/Ferroviere.htm).
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Gratitude: Astral SpA ~ Corrado Giustozzi ~ Tiziana Narducci ~ Rossella Vichi (president of Comitato di Quartiere Piramide-Ostiense).