Cinema on the radio

Sunday, 7 PM: let’s switch on Radio3 and… “hear” a film. Cinema on the radio is one of the longest-running formats in Italy (“Hollywood Party” has been broadcast for 30 years). Sometimes, after “hearing” a film, you may not remember if you actually saw it or just “heard” it: cinema is such a complex and complete art that images (what we can see) are only one of the many ingredients making up the work of art called “film.” And once we have seen those images, our mind recreates, reshapes, re-invents them when we or someone else talks about them. And who talks about them? Cinema on the radio was just one example of the earliest storytelling experiments. Today’s technology is constantly offering new methods, but what’s even more important is the evolution of a culture of sensitivity and accessibility for everyone.

To achieve the best results, an entire society’s efforts are based on this sensitivity and culture. A perfect example is Bologna’s Cineteca, a cultural body whose social mission is the heart of every action (such as its training projects with schools or free screenings in Piazza Maggiore, to name just two). This social mission is expressed to the highest degree when tools for accessibility are perfected, in dialog with many other organizations (such as the Cavazza Institute), which play the principal roles in this sector. All sight-impaired people know and use an app to listen to the audio description of films. The Movie Reading app is an enormous library: as a result of a collaboration between the Cavazza Institute and the Bologna Cineteca, every month Cinema Modernissimo’s program includes two films that sight-impaired people can listen to by means of audio description (moreover, many of the films at the Modernissimo, at the Cinema Lumière, and in Piazza Maggiore are subtitled, so that the hearing-impaired can enjoy them). In addition, the Cineteca staff accompany sight-impaired customers to their seat, and guide dogs are allowed to enter the theater.

Regarding accessibility to Cinema Modernissimo’s theater, we also have to mention the new Piazza Re Enzo entrance. Designed by Mario Nanni, this entrance has an elevator (built with funding by the Golinelli Foundation) to the underground level (where the balcony is) so that people in wheelchairs can enter the theater. Another elevator goes to the ground floor, located a few meters further down.

To conclude this article on accessibility to film screenings, we remind the reader that even when this seems easy, it isn’t always: the Cineteca’s most popular shows – free screenings in Piazza Maggiore – must be for everyone. So, for people with disabilities, the City of Bologna, Cineteca, and PMG Italia Società Benefit provide the shuttle bus of the Bologna For Community social project, which operates with the help of volunteers from Io Sto Con ONLUS.

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