Fear for Cinecittà studios after a fire
A papier-mâché tray recreating Renaissance Florence was reduced to ashes on Monday.
A fire broke out on Monday on a set of the legendary Cinecittà studios in Rome.
KEYSTONE / EPA / MAXIMUM PERCOSSI
A fire broke out on Monday in the legendary Cinecittà studios in Rome. He feared the worst in this period of historic drought, but the material toll finally proved to be light, we learned from the studios and the firefighters.
The fire, which gave off thick black smoke visible for several kilometers, started in the afternoon on a papier-mâché tray recreating Renaissance Florence. “The fire has been extinguished. There are no injuries, poisonings or serious material damage,” studio spokesman Marlon Pellegrini said in a statement. Completely destroyed, the set was being dismantled, explained the firefighters on Twitter.
In 2007, a spectacular fire ravaged a warehouse housing sets for the Anglo-American television blockbuster “Rome” relating the birth of the Roman Empire. Many classic masterpieces were filmed in the “Cinema City” such as William Wyler’s “Ben Hur” (1959) and Federico Fellini’s “Dolce Vita” (1960).
Desert crossing
In the 1970s, the boom in television productions and the crisis in cinematographic productions had put an end to the golden age of Cinecittà, which would then experience a long crossing of the desert. Privatized, then returned to public control in 2017, the studios once again hosted foreign productions from the early 2000s, without however ever regaining their original luster.
Last year they unveiled a development plan of 260 million euros with the ambition of becoming by 2026 “an important European cinematographic pole”, by betting on series and TV programs.
This plan provides in particular for the doubling of the surface area of the studios, the creation and renovation of sets, the construction of an indoor swimming pool and a theater with a 360° green screen.
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