BEAUTY: Photography--Fiorella Baldisserri

Italian photographer Fiorella Baldisserri's approach is that of a photojournalist and her series Morris the "Cinemaio" is entirely charming and nostalgic (some of these images take me right back to the dark and hushed excitement of the little, red-velvet-draped movie theatre in the tiny town in upstate New York where I grew up). In this series, she documents the sole owner and operator of a cinema in a small town in the province of Bologna, Italy. Morris Donini is dedicated to the magical world of film but like many people in many different professions, he has struggled during COVID. She writers about her series below:

"Cinema has always been Morris Donini’s dream. Everyone knows and loves him as Morris the 'cinemaio', the artisan of the cinema. In this year of forced closure due to the pandemic, he decides to keep showing movies in an empty theater. In the darkness of his cinema, Morris sits on an armchair or on the floor at the back of the room, as he used to do during normal times, as if he is savoring lights and atmospheres that only images can give. He keeps the doors open to allow the inhabitants of the small town to hear the voices and the music of the stories projected, while flashes of light come out as reflections that send a message: cinema exists, the show goes on. Resilience is also and mostly this: Morris (and sometimes his dog), as a sole spectator in a moment of great difficulty, with closed cinemas but with rents to be paid, with strength and determination, hoping that lights won’t switch off forever. Since his childhood, Morris drew cinemas in school notebooks with his flans for posters and his film reviews. From an early age, dreams are created and they later become ideals to be pursued. By chance he met the owner of a cinema in a small town in the province of Bologna and since then, every day, he asked him to become part of that world as he wanted to experience the atmosphere of the room, with its red velvet fabrics, the armchairs and the magical screen. In return he offered to run small works. Years passed and on the death of the owner he was asked to manage that cinema. Morris was 29 and without a second thought he accepted. Today he directs three provincial cinemas: cinema to give cultural identity even to small towns. Morris pursued an ideal of life that with patience and dedication became a reality. In Italy, cinema business has undergone a drastic reduction of more than 70% in terms of presences and incomes, causing an estimated loss of more than 25 million spectators: a collapse that has never been seen or even hypothesized since the birth of this sector which today is an industry."

https://www.fiorellabaldisserri.com/morris-il-cinemaio/