The National Museum of Cinema pays tribute to its founder, Maria Adriana Prolo

The National Museum of Cinema pays tribute to its founder, Maria Adriana Prolo through an exhibition, the re-release of the documentary Occhi che videro, the creation of a research centre on Italian silent films, the anastatic reprinting of a precious volume, a conference and projects for schools.

Maria Adriana Prolo passed away on 20 February 1991. The founder of the National Museum of Cinema was a passionate and tenacious – a competent, visionary and non-conformist woman. She was internationally respected and devoted every effort to making the dream of a museum dedicated to the Seventh Art come true.

On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of her death, the National Museum of Cinema is paying homage to her with MARIA ADRIANA PROLO: UN MUSEO, LA SUA FONDATRICE, a selection of images that portray her from the 1920s to the end of the 1980s. This will be on display on the outside gate of the Mole Antonelliana from 19 February to the end of March 2021.

The private photos, some of which are issued from the family archive, are accompanied by some of the photographs displayed at the exhibition dedicated to the first location of the Museum of Cinema at Palazzo Chiablese, curated by Lorenzo Ventavoli, as well as images taken by Elena Bosio on the set of the documentary Occhi che videro by Daniele Segre (Italy 1989, 50') - a film in which Maria Adriana Prolo and her Museum were the main stars.

The film and the extra content are now presented as a unique document that captures the vitality of this great little woman, wrapped in the magic of the precious collections of cinema, pre-cinema and photography passionately collected over decades.

The documentary will be available online on the Museum's Vimeo channel for the duration of the tribute.

This is the first in a series of events featuring an extraordinary 20th-century figure, a pioneer of film collecting and film historiography.

The Museum announces the anastatic reprinting and translation of her book Storia del cinema muto italiano, Vol. I, published in 1951 and now difficult to find: this is a bold piece of work that is partly surpassed by subsequent research and is now made available again because of the total uniqueness and originality in the pioneering choice of subject matter. The volume shows a rigorous methodology for documenting and source analysis that the author developed during her university studies on the history of the Risorgimento. Gianna Chiapello, Maria Adriana Prolo's historic assistant and still a collaborator of the Museum, will give an important contribution by carrying out the revision of the iconographic part of the volume.

The publication is the first symbolic initiative of the Giovanni Pastrone Research Centre on Italian Silent Cinema, founded in 2020 by the National Museum of Cinema and the University of Turin.

In addition to the anastatic reprint, the volume will be made available in the coming months in a digital version, free of charge. Maria Adriana Prolo’s text, which constitutes the first part of the work, will be translated into the official languages of the Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film (French, English and Spanish), an association of which the Museum has been a member since the 1950s thanks to the tenacity of its founder and the preciousness of its collections.

The project will be realised with the contribution of the National Museum of Cinema Association.

The publication of the book, seventy years after its first publication, will be the starting point for the organisation of a conference in the next academic year, dedicated to the past and future of the historiography of Italian silent films. This will be organised by the University of Turin and the National Museum of Cinema together with the Pastrone Research Centre.

The Museum's Education department - with the support of the Pastrone Research Centre - is also planning a project for schools dedicated to the figure of Maria Adriana Prolo, in which students will be asked to play an active part.

Finally, this anniversary is an opportunity to reconfirm the close tie between Alessandro Antonelli and Maria Adriana Prolo, who was so prolific and passionate as to have given life not only to the Museum of Cinema in Turin but also to the Museo Storico Etnografico with Fernanda Renolfi, Carlo Dionisotti and a group of scholars. It was founded in 1973 at Villa Caccia (Romagnano Sesia), in a complex designed and built by Antonelli.

Maria Adriana Prolo and Alessandro Antonelli will be the two personalities who will welcome visitors to the new National Museum of Cinema's reception plan at the Mole Antonelliana, scheduled for 2021.