Cinema Astra: Running a Cinema That Resists

Cinema: the shared experience of a dark room held in silence, time suspended, immersion in other worlds. A ritual for the devoted, one that keeps its distance from our addiction to flickering screens and the few-second clips that swallow us whole. Cinema is something else, and we talk about it here through a short journey into the seventh art and the Florentine places that still guard its magic.

Talking it over with Michele Crocchiola, one thing becomes clear at once: for him, building a movie theater’s identity means having a coherent editorial line and offering films that leave a mark, creating a real bond with the audience. By holding to that attentive, passionate approach over the years, Michele rose to become general director of the Fondazione Stensen, which owns the art-house cinema of the same name — currently closed for improvements and upgrades.

Since it opened on 26 January 2023, Stensen has run the Cinema Astra in Piazza Beccaria together with PRG, a company that stages live shows in Florence’s theaters (the Mandela Forum and many others). “We closed the Stensen the day before the Astra opened. I like to call the Astra our backup cinema!”

From the artistic direction of a major festival to running cinemas: a path marked by weighty experiences. How have these steps shaped your view of the role a cinema can play in society and in contemporary cultural debate?

Yes — for four years I directed a large and important arts festival in Poggibonsi, then the Tuscany region called me to run the Odeon for three years. When that ended I went back to the Stensen, where I had once volunteered. I found there a method, a freedom of action, and a cultural sensibility that were missing elsewhere. By its charter the Foundation is concerned with interculturality and education, trying to encourage a shared way of questioning the cultural, ethical, and political dynamics that keep emerging — just think of the social and political upheavals of the last five years.

Together with the president, Father Brovedani, we have worked over these years, through cinema and beyond it, to offer programs that bring different sensibilities together, valuing distinct backgrounds through a secular approach, without sterile confrontations. The goal is to help citizens identify fresh criteria for reading change, and to foster informed citizenship and a responsible, peaceful, constructive coexistence.

The Stensen has passed through several phases — can you walk us through them? And how has that legacy shaped its present identity and its role in the Florentine film scene?

Founded by the Jesuits in the 1960s, the Fondazione Culturale Stensen was first a student residence, then a cultural center, and finally a reference point for auteur cinema too. Its history is especially interesting in the 1970s and 1980s, when the progressive, left-leaning current of the Florentine Church — which had already produced Giorgio La Pira — was followed by an intellectual ferment: I am told, for instance, that one of the preparatory meetings for the founding of the communist newspaper Il Manifesto took place right here at the Stensen in Florence.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s it was known as a cineforum. In the 2000s the Stensen changed president, with the arrival of a new Jesuit father who is still in charge, and with him came a few changes — among them young university students as volunteers. Some of those young people still move within Florence’s film world; perhaps the two best known are myself and Marco Luceri (now cinema manager of the Giunti Odeon).

In 2013, with titles like The Brand New Testament (released in Italy as Dio esiste e abita a Bruxelles), the Stensen built a strong identity and won lasting audience loyalty. How did you help it grow into a reference point in the Florentine and national film scene?

Andrea Romeo, founder of the distribution house I Wonder, proposed I sign a nine-week contract for that film — a gamble like few others. It became a local and national phenomenon. I remember it because so many people still recall having seen this film at the Stensen. In a world where you can watch films almost anywhere, it is essential for a cinema to build its own identity as a venue: it develops through an editorial line, through titles that act as a kind of trademark, layered over an emotional experience of deep shared feeling.

It is like going out at eighteen with the most popular kid in school: even if it never happens again, the emotional memory is there to stay. In the early years I was responsible for the Stensen’s programming alongside a few fellow volunteers; over time things kept improving, so we were able to give it continuity, and the Foundation agreed to make the cinema a stable operation, even appointing a general director. Today I handle both the artistic side, together with other colleagues, and all the “less fun” part — human resources, budgets, maintenance.

Today the Foundation manages the programming and training for other venues too, such as the Nuovo Cinema Italia in Pontassieve, the Cinema L’Unione at Girone, the Teatro di Fiesole, and the Garibaldi in Prato. It also oversees the summer arenas at Villa Bardini, the Roman Theater of Fiesole, and Manifattura Tabacchi, with the aim of building a quality network.

How important was creating a network of cinemas, and how did you make sure these venues, while keeping their own identity, became places of social life and exchange for the public?

Creating a network means helping spaces stay independent while sharing a coordination and a method: promoting the idea that cinema is, above all, a place of social life, of encounter, and also of discussion and debate.

Let’s talk specifically about the Cinema Astra — what makes it unique?

The Astra, now two years old, is a multipurpose space: its seats can be tucked away beneath the floor, and a structure like that calls for invention and imagination. In fact we have also used it as an exhibition space for photography shows, turning the screen into a slideshow panel.

With the film Tatami, on the other hand — about Israel and Iran seen through the sport of judo — we brought in Florence’s judo schools, made the seats disappear, turned the room into a kind of gym, and watched the film lying on the tatami mats. These feel like ways of enriching the cinematic experience, widening our view and our knowledge through different kinds of encounter.

What impact do architectural and cultural constraints have on the survival of cinemas in Florence?

Cinemas close depending on the context they find themselves in; every city has its own reasons, and Florence has its own. Architectural and cultural constraints ought to protect tangible and intangible heritage, but they have often turned into limitations that serve no end, without politics managing to find the solutions, trade-offs, or transformations needed to revive these places — even when they are privately owned. In Florence there have been telling cases.

The Cinema Odeon was transformed for financial and management reasons, the Fulgor closed after a property speculation that went wrong, the SpazioUno sits idle in the hope of reopening in the same building, now the subject of a major renovation. The Fiorella and the Flora, too, have been or are about to be transformed (into larger multiplexes) to meet the new dynamics of the market.

What is the role of film festivals in Florence, and how are they meeting the challenges of watching audiovisual work in the digital age?

There is one I hadn’t mentioned: La Compagnia, a public cinema (run by the region), distinctive for its pricing policy and its programming choices, and the home of festivals — among them Middle East Now, the Korea Film Festival, the Festival dei Popoli, and River to River.

With institutional support, this cinema kept working even during the pandemic, and as the audience’s generational range shifted — the “young” under-35 crowd has grown relative to the “adult” over-55 one — La Compagnia is raising “the audience of tomorrow,” and it does so by hosting all these festivals and taking on important, wide-ranging themes.

Florence is one of the Italian cities with the most international film festivals, of a caliber recognized across Europe. These, too, are being transformed, because in a world where you can watch audiovisual work anywhere, organizing exclusive, first-time premieres is becoming ever more complex.

How do you see the evolution of technology in cinema today, and how important is the human dimension against the technology itself in the way we experience film?

I’d say the height of technological innovation at the cinema right now is all in the seats! Joking aside, we have worked, for example, with augmented-reality screenings using headsets, turning an experience meant to be solitary into a shared one. In fact, I’d say it is not technology that makes a cinema, but people. It is the spaces that have to become innovative and more welcoming; it will be the architecture, in cinemas, that puts technology to use. And then, who knows, there may even be a return to film stock in the theater, because the experience of cinema will never pass.

To close, what are your dreams or long-term goals for the Cinema Astra and for the future of film culture in Florence?

Plenty is bubbling away — guests on the way, festivals, series, restorations — but the most important thing will be finishing the overhaul of our hall, which is requiring an investment of several million. Let me talk about that instead: anyone looking for cinema in a welcoming, cheerful space in Florence should come to the Astra, where you’ll find a broad, multi-strand program.

The cinema is open all year round, includes films in the original language with Italian subtitles, and there are screenings on Saturday and Sunday mornings too — and you don’t even need to bring water, because there’s a Publiacqua fountain to refill your bottles. There will soon be news about the Stensen, and my hope is that it can gather the sum of everything we’ve briefly touched on here: culture, social life, encounters, films. That’s what we’re focused on; that will be our goal.

Photographs courtesy of the Fondazione Stensen Archive.