The Rome Film Fest reaches the Sala MediCinema of the Gemelli Hospital

The Rome Film Fest arrives for the first time at the MediCinema theatre of the Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli, with the screening of two films from the Official Selection, reserved for patients and their relatives. The first screening will feature Terapia di coppia per amanti by Alessio Maria Federici – with Pietro Sermonti, Ambra Angiolini and Sergio Rubini – (Tuesday October 31, 4 pm). On Friday November 3 (4pm), the screening will feature Mazinger Z Infinity by Japanese director Junji Shimizu – after its world premiere at the Rome Film Fest on Saturday 28^th – dedicated especially to pediatric patients and their families. The screenings are made possible by the collaboration instituted this year between the Rome Film Fest, the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli and MediCinema Italia Onlus.
Since April 2016, the Policlinico A. Gemelli hospital houses a real movie theatre, which began operating regularly in September of that year with a bi-weekly schedule of screenings: on Tuesday for all patients and on Thursday dedicated to the pediatric wards. The films screen in the hospital at the same time they are released in movie theatres around the city, thanks to the committed cooperation of film production and distribution companies. The screenings are devoted to the hospital’s patients and their relatives and friends: an innovative therapeutic instrument that combines with traditional therapies to offer inpatients a ” break “, the relief of feeling “normal”.
The methods and management of the programme, now being developed at the national level, is entrusted to MediCinema Italia Onlus, which is also promoting a scientific research project coordinated by the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, in collaboration with the hospitals in other cities where MediCinema already operates.
“It is truly wonderful, I would say even natural and ‘inevitable’, for the MediCinema and Gemelli project to join forces with the Rome Film Fest and screen two films from the official lineup in our own movie theatre, designed and built for the inpatients of the Policlinico – stated Enrico Zampedri, General Manager of the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli. Following Minister Dario Franceschini’s expression of appreciation and praise at the Venice International Film Festival, we are pleased at this new acknowledgment of our project to bring movies into hospitals for the benefit of their patients: for this, we would like to thank the Rome Film Fest, starting with Artistic Director Antonio Monda.
This participation is also a demonstration that the hospital continues to open up to the territory including the inpatients of the Gemelli, both adults and children, in an important and increasingly popular social and cultural event for our city. This is yet another piece in the mosaic of humanized hospital care that we relentlessly pursue”.
The Artistic Director of the Rome Film Fest, Antonio Monda, stated: “Adding to our traditional venues at the MAXXI and Casa del Cinema, the Rome Film Fest is moving even further out into the city, with screenings and events in new venues such as the Libraries and the Policlinico Gemelli hospital”.
“We are very proud to participate in this project and to share this wonderful opportunity with the patients and their family members – concludes Fulvia Salvi, President of MediCinema Italia Onlus. The experience of cinema as a medium of treatment and relief, which we are advancing with hospitalized patients, has already demonstrated the value of this instrument in supporting the psychological and physical improvement of the patient. I truly wish to thank the organizers of the Rome Film Fest who regularly involve the entire city every year, but who this year will also involve hospitalized people, giving them the opportunity to participate anyway”.