Rome Turns Eleven Cinemas Into Cooling Rooms, and Screens Films for Free

Rome's mayor Roberto Gualtieri announced that eleven cinemas would host free screenings twice a day until 4 August, as shelter from the heat. The showings start between 1pm and 2.45pm and again between 6.30pm and 6.45pm, which is precisely the window when a flat without air conditioning becomes unbearable.

The rest of the month is outdoors. The open air Ettore Scola theatre in Villa Borghese runs free screenings in the original language with Italian subtitles, publishes its programme week by week and is pet friendly, so the park comes with the film. Cinevillage charges five euros and runs until September across four venues: Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, Villa Lazzaroni, Villa Bonelli and Parco Mar.

None of this is a festival in the sense of something programmed for visitors. It is municipal provision aimed at the people who stay: the ones without a second home in the hills, working through a month in which their own city closes around them.

August in Rome is usually described from the point of view of whoever has left. The more interesting version is what a city does for the residents who cannot, and a cinema with the air conditioning on and no ticket price is a more honest civic gesture than most heat plans manage.