CAN A NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PERUGIA SAVE ITSELF WITH SOME HELP FROM CINEMA?

To anyone who has wandered through a changing Perugia in recent years, the transformation taking place in the neighbourhood around Via della Viola, via Cartolari and via del Carmine is obvious. In a not-so-distant past, this tangle of streets, while not far from Corso Vannucci, seemed somewhat disreputable precisely because it was secluded and nocturnal in the most disquieting sense.
In a stroke of genius, though, around 2012, a number of young people thought of turning these streets into an open-air art workshop, lighting them up with murals, designs, sculptures and community performance art. This wave has not yet stopped thanks to an association with the spring-like name of Fiorivano le viole (The violets were blooming. trans.) that has turned the area into a kind of Perugia-style Montmartre where visual artists are invited to leave their own mark on walls and doors.
And thus, the dark atmosphere has become much lighter. To crown the effort, two new cinemas have opened: cinema Meliès in 2012 and the three screening rooms of cinema Postmodernissimo in 2014 (that replaced the previous cinema Modernissimo). And so, the neighbourhood continues to be an area devoted to nightlife, but in the best possible way, thus ensuring its security. On an evening stroll through these streets now, one is favourably impressed with the coming and going of persons both young and less so who are attracted to the light coming from the screening rooms of the cinemas where they can linger for film commentary, to have a drink and something to eat, re-discovering a taste for conversation and for this city open even at night.