Cinema Impero takes its name from a cinema built in Asmara in 1937, during the Fascist regime. From this symbolic place emerges a reflection on the power of images and narratives: cinema, like artificial intelligence today, contributes to constructing memory, imagination and the perception of reality.
The performance interweaves materials from the historical archive of the Istituto Luce and the artist’s personal archive. Two voices — one artificial, one human — guide a meta-narrative in which times, places and languages overlap.
Conceived for one person at a time, Cinema Impero takes place inside a black box where cinema, theatre and artificial intelligence meet. An experience of close listening that brings memory, history and the present into dialogue.
Muna Mussie Cinema Impero
Muna Mussie (Eritrea, 1978) is an artist, performer and researcher based in Bologna. Her work — through gesture, vision and word — explores the languages of the stage, performing arts and visual arts, giving form to the tension that arises between different expressive poles.
Written and directed by: Muna Mussie
Curated by Martina Angelotti
With the collaboration of:
Video editing: Luca Mattei
Ant(i)hropologist Africanist: Simao Amista
Musician: Matteo Nobile
Sound designer: SimonLuca Laitempergher
Translator: Susan Zuckerman
Thanks to: Filmon Yemane for sharing AI technology dedicated to blind and visually impaired people.
Cinema Impero is the winning project of the first edition of blOOm, a network for one-on-one creations, promoted and conceived by: Fondazione Armunia, Primavera dei Teatri, Santarcangelo Festival, Sardegna Teatro, Triennale Milano Teatro.
Project supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within LANDING.
With the support of: Passage Festival, IIC Strasbourg and the Export area of ATER Fondazione.
Co-production: Museo delle Civiltà, Rome.
- Duration 20'
- Doors opening at 15 minutes before the start of the performance
