Roma città chiusa

It is not an apocalypse, but a pandemic which empties the streets of the Eternal City, confining Italians to their homes just weeks before the rest of the world follows suit. In ROME CITTÀ CHIUSA (ROME CLOSED CITY) Scarpelli observes the Italian capital just days into its full quarantine due to the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Life oscillates between fear and calm; ambulance sirens one moment and laughter from a window the next. Rainbow signs hang from windows: "Everything's going to be O.K." A historic moment; an exercise in fragility; perhaps a new normal, for now.