My life with film

First scene. A little girl about four-year-old holds her mother's hand tighly and opens her eyes in astonishment. On a huge white screen on the wall there are four, five, six, seven couples dancing and singing. Movement, laughter, music, happiness...

The girl asks her mother: "What is this, mama?". "This is cinema, Sandra"- her mother replies. A film called "Seven brides for seven brothers".

Funnily enough, the girl looks around and she doesn't see anything but people staring at the white screen and smiling. Once out of the cinema, nothing of the sort. Gray and wet winter weather is all she feels. No trace of happy and smiling faces. No trace of music and dancing.

Second scene. Some years later, the girl receives a Christmas present: a cinema projector with some Pink Panther films. That was really magical! The girl spends many evenings, after doing her homework, inserting the films through the holes as stated in the instruction leaflet, switching the camera on, switching her only child's bedroom lights off and laughing at the misfortunes of a silent pink panther, moving on the white walls.

Third scene. Time mercilessly goes by. The little girl has grown up and she no longer devotes much of her scarce spare time to cinema. She is now a teenager and college and other activities keep her busy. Surprisingly, one day she starts to wake up at 7 am on Saturdays, while her parents are still sleeping, and switches on the TV. Why does she do so? A cycle of black-and-white American films from the 40's and 50's gives the girl the perfect excuse to be on her own for some hours and dream with eyes wide open, far from college duties.

Fourth scene. After many years, the girl reencounters an old friend, the cinema, unfairly consigned to oblivion. And such a happy reecounter is due to a third party, some sort of Pigmalion who opens the girl's eyes to what movies can offer, far from commercialism or blockbusters. Snobbish as it can sound, at the end of the day, all the girl is looking for is the same emotion she felt one day, holding her mother's hand, staring at a white piece of cloth on a worn-out wall.