Green traffic lights for no one. Trams from which only one traveler gets off. Posters announcing his promises to the seagulls. the short Rome, Citta Chiusa ("Rome, closed city"), released by The New Yorker, shows us the Italian capital as we have never seen it before: empty, silent, sad . A ghostly weight wanders in each scene, separating the citizens, replacing their former place in the streets.
"Rome is not a normal bustling city, of course it is full, but it is more a city of interaction, of spontaneity, of characters in the streets. It is unique because of the types of people who go from one place to another, for the unique way they interact, confront and confide in each other," begins the filmmaker Mo Scarpelli.
"Right now, It's like Rome is hibernating ", she admits. "I still feel the spirit of this city, because it is in the people, it remains, only now it is in the interiors. And as you can see in the film, I find moments where this soul of the people peeks out, reveals itself, even in the strange resounding emptiness of a capital."
Scarpelli, director of Italian-American non-fiction, had just moved to the city when the authorities ordered the confinement of its citizens. "The uniqueness of human interaction in this city is part of the reason I moved here, to experience this aspect of Rome every day. Obviously, I haven't. So, like all Italians and like, soon , much of the world, I'm waiting for this to end, I'm waiting the moment to truly know my new city ", she admits.
The filmmaker recorded the shocking images on March 13, a few days after the state of alarm was declared in the country. "The situation is still as seen in the film; maybe, there are even fewer people on the streets, more people wearing masks. Now I also wear a mask , and not because I'm sick, but because I want to assure others that I am not a threat and that I am trying to follow the rules. Rome is relatively safe in terms of the spread of the disease; however, northern Italy is suffering greatly. To prevent this from happening here, to show my support for Italy trying to stop this, I wear a mask."
"Since the movie was released on March 18, many people have told me that their cities are starting to feel that way too. I think we can expect a lot of silence, that we will see nature taking cities back, that a spectral feeling of abandonment will spread in our public spaces around the world over the next month," she continues.
Despite these predictions, the filmmaker assures that she is handling the quarantine well, since she has a lot of creative work ahead of her and has the support of her partner. "People try to keep morale high," she says. "We play the music in our house several times a day, and we hear others do the same; we exercise inside, and we see a woman kickboxing on the roof, a couple getting a haircut on the terrace in front. We are isolated, but there is something in the air that feels like a synergy. I guess that's solidarity ", concludes Scarpelli.