Rome's King of Film Exhibition

Giovanni Amati operated the largest private cinema chain in postwar Italy. His career in film exhibition spanned for over 40 years, from 1939 until 1980, a period of drastic change in film consumption, exhibition practices, politics and urban development in Rome.

Amati became Rome’s leading exhibitor in the mid-1950s, when cinema attendance reached its all-time peak in Italy. In the late 1970s, near the end of his life, he had to endure an acute crisis for film exhibition that coincided with the rise of private TV channels.

In this talk, Dr. Bowen will examine a range of primary materials that reveal his core practices as an exhibitor, including his principles as a film programmer and a builder and renovator of cinemas. Dr. Bowen will also examine the composition of Amati’s cinema portfolio and his film programming practices at three different points spread throughout his career - 1951, 1965 and 1974 - to shed light on how he nearly monopolized Rome's exhibition market.

When: Thursday from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m., January 29, 2026

Where: Italian Cultural & Community Center, 1101 Milford Street

Tickets: Free

Meet the Speaker

Dr. Edward Bowen specializes in Italian film history, film exhibition, urban politics, and contemporary Italian culture. His work is aligned with a subfield of film studies known as ‘New Cinema History,’ in which scholars examine a wide-range of primary documents, beyond the film text, in order to better understand the social, commercial, and political aspects of moviegoing. Some of Bowen’s work examines the business practices of exhibitors, the attachments that spectators have to venues, and the political potential of movie theaters. His most recent project is a co-edited volume (with Damien Pollard) titled Film Exhibition: The Italian Context (Oxford: Legenda, forthcoming in 2024), that will be the first book in English exclusively dedicated to film exhibition history in Italy. Bowen’s chapter in the volume focuses on the career of exhibitor Giovanni Amati and the practices of his dominant cinema chain in Rome. Along with Rémi Lanzoni, Bowen co-edited and contributed to the volume The Cinema of Ettore Scola (Wayne State University Press, 2020). He has published in the following journals: Bianco e Nero, Textual Cultures, Cinema e storia, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, and Studies in Documentary Film. Bowen enjoys teaching all levels of Italian language, and he has designed numerous interdisciplinary courses on cinema, literature, history, migration, and urban studies. Several of his courses are cross-listed with the Department of Film & Media Studies. Bowen has co-directed the Summer Language Institute in Florence several times, and he enjoys helping students to find internships and scholarships in Italy. In April 2023, he received the Jessie Marie Senor Cramer & Ann Cramer Root Research and Teaching Award.

This lecture is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance and Humanities Texas.

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