cafebabel.com

Multiculturalism in Piazza Vittorio, Rome

('Sebastian Baciu',) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:30:51 -0000

Rome's Piazza Vittorio Emanuele was once a prime example of integration, but today some residents claim that the area has since become overrun by 'Chinese trash culture'. The good news is that there are efforts to unite the district's inhabitants through art

Most expensive EU TV production Borgia: outsiders from Spain in renaissance Italy

('ZoeBBee',) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:58:00 -0000

The fifteenth century Italian crime family is the subject of a hit Franco-German TV series originally filmed in Prague and screened as of this summer in three European countries. We discuss reality and fiction with French Borgia expert Pol Bruno at his welcoming home on the Breton coast

Ascanio Celestini: 'I denounce verbal violence of our time’

('Annie Rutherford',) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:00:00 -0000

He is the mouthpiece of contemporary Italian theatre, a critic of power, an anthropologist who depicts the evils of our time better than anyone else. The 39-year-old actor, director and author talks about coming from outside Rome and where his one-man-show gets its inspirations from

Giulio Spatola, Mr Gay Europe 2011: ‘People like me don’t create a spectacle’

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:09:58 -0000

The 26-year-old from Palermo, Italy, was crowned the dubious title at the fifth edition of the five-day event in Romania in April. The filmmaker and hotel manager says it’s about more than what is branded a 'beauty contest for the gay community'

Supper clubs between London and Paris

('Amy Tighe',) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:55:34 -0000

With all the talk of recession-wrought doom and gloom, cutbacks and taxation, it can be easy to forget to make lemon cheesecake out of Life’s proverbial lemons. If necessity is the mother of invention, let the economic depression yield inspiration. And let's have a slap-up meal in the process

Green Rome’s periphery: get thee to the Casale Podere Rosa cultural centre

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:00:00 -0000

On the urbanely disfigured periphery of the Italian capital, activists have spent the last two decades using tools such as squats, organic food markets, film projections, solar panels and the idea of Italian environmental memory to promote a more convivial and environmentally friendly way of life

Pigs can fly or the pope is green

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:00:00 -0000

Does Benedict XVI really have green fingers? He’s been branded the ‘green pope’ for his advocacy of global environmental protection for years – but is it merited?

Rome was not built in a day...nor for bikes

('cbinns',) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:10:00 -0000

I am a devout cyclist who first rode a bike by chance. I come from Strasbourg in eastern France, a city in which the two wheels reign supreme, so I did all I could to get hold of a bike in Rome. 'It’s suicidal!' those around me squealed, but after four days alone in a city dominated by cars, I realised that cycling can also look like a kamikaze mission

Homophobia in Rome, the 'capital of gay murders'

('Helen Swain',) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:20:04 -0000

Letter bombs on homosexual communities versus documentaries to fight ignorance and rights which don't exist. On 10 October, gay rights groups in Rome are planning a march to protest an ongoing spate of homophobic violence

Facebooking Afghani refugee children in Italy

('Alexandra Baxter',) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:15:00 -0000

‘In December 2008 I met four young Afghani children on a bus. I was struck by their smiles, the commotion they caused and the racism of other passengers on the bus. They had arrived that very evening, on foot, the night that the Tiber flooded. I took them with me that evening, but things didn’t turn out as expected...'

Backstage: story of a Senegalese street vendor in Rome

('Alexandra Baxter',) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:25:14 -0000

‘La petite vendeuse de soleil’ is a moving film first shown at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival in the 'director's fortnight' category. It tells the story of a young Senegalese girl who is a street vendor for the newspaper ‘Soleil’, a common job for immigrants living in European cities. Off the cinema screens, we meet Ndjogou Thiongane in Rome, who accompanies us on a visit to the great mosque, and tells us his own story

Where are the Italians at the Romanian shopping centre in Rome?

('Annika Thornton',) — Thu, 14 May 2009 06:30:00 -0000

The first Romanian-owned shopping centre, La Strada, has opened in Tiburtina, a district of Rome. Visitors are few and far between, and the Italians are even scarcer. Feature

Erasmus testimony: tips from a Maltese in Rome

('James Pace',) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:48:14 -0000

I can’t believe it’s only been a month since I packed 20kg of my most prized possessions and took them out of hot, humid Malta to set up camp in Italy's eternal city