Sandcastles, sightseeing, sunflowers, spiaggia, sandali, sole, Sardinia, Sicily. Summer in Italy is famous for many things, but box office cinema is not one of them.
While box offices take a swan dive, moviegoers flock to the piazzas, parks, and other open-air cinema locations throughout Italy. This is a longstanding Italian tradition that continues to flourish.
Most screenings are movies from previous seasons, giving the public a great opportunity to catch up on movies they may have missed.
Outdoor theaters are especially found in Lombardy and Piedmont during the summer, perhaps because of their lack of seashore. The most prominent “arene estive” in Milan is called AriAnteo. Located by the Milan Conservatory of Giuseppe Verdi, the picturesque Royal Villa of Monza, and the scenic park of Villa Ghirlanda at Cinisello Balsamo, AriAnteo is the ideal place to catch an outdoor flick.
In Camogli, Liguria, you can play bocce ball while you watch films at the historic bocciofila. In Florence, you can watch screenings of award winning films at “Firenze Sotto le Stelle”. From the 12th to the 20th of June, the gorgeous island of Ischia hosts its annual “Ischia Global Film and Music Fest.”
Los Angeles has started taking lines out of Italy’s script, as we see increasingly more outdoor movie showings during the summer.
Despite being situated in a cemetery, Cinespia was labeled the “hippest outdoor movie game in town” by the magazine “Curbed Los Angeles”. With a trendy DJ and cult classics, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Cinespia is to die for.
Another intriguing venue is the Dive-in Movie Night in Pasadena, where movies are displayed by the poolside at the Rose Bowl. Audiences can literally dive into their movie theater.
In the car-saturated land of Los Angeles, drive-ins are starting to make a comeback from their groovy retro years. The Electric Dusk Drive-in in the Fashion District of LA and the Vineland Drive-in in the San Gabriel Valley have become popular spots.
From Liguria to Los Angeles, open-air cinema is spicing up this summer 2014.
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