La Sosteria is a project of urban redevelopment, through a creative re-appropriation of a newsstand in the village of Fiorano, Italy. La Sosteria aims at preserving existing estate, repurposing abandoned infrastructure, and involving the community in a programme of activities.
The Ennesimo Film Festival is probably the only festival in the world where a cat is sunbathing all day long on the red carpet, not even bothering about the coming and going of guests. The click-clacking of high heels indeed is seldom to be heard on the festival ground; it’s more about the sneakers of local youngsters. No wonder this festival is making a claim on the public space in the city centre. The ultimate goal of renovating a small newsstand was to give the city streets back to the community and to transform its abandoned venues into a hub for production, culture and innovation.
The first cultural initiatives within La Sosteria included a theatre play, using the newsstand as a theatre scene, and a one-on-one poetry workshop. During the festival, the place was turned into a micro-cinema where a 2- or 3-headed audience could come to watch the ‘Worldwide Selection’ programme: short films from festivals all over Europe. Lara Melegari (coordinator of the Worldwide programme): “The main concept of La Sosteria is this sort of post-pandemic middle ground that allows people to experience cinema in a location which is neither one’s living room, nor a full-capacity theatre, as well as the idea of this hybrid space to screen selections from all over Europe in a sort of journey through the screen thanks to our international partners, that made it possible for us to share a part of their experiential identity with our community. This is all part of a bigger project of re-appropriation of disused urban spaces which used to be important for the town and are now left to decay.”
Curated by the Ennesimo Film Festival, La Sosteria is supported by the Municipality of Fiorano and Fondazione di Modena.