Cinema Impero, reimagined by Muna Mussie, disseminates across Rome at three points in the city, through collaboration with Cinema Troisi, MUCIV-Museo delle Civiltà and MACRO – Museo d’arte contemporanea. A device that takes its name from the eponymous cinema located in the centre of Asmara, built in 1937 during the fascist regime, it traverses colonial archives through the lens of intimacy and affectivity, bringing into dialogue video materials from the Istituto Luce and the artist’s private archive, narrated and interpreted by two voices and two intelligences — one artificial, one emotional.
Short Theatre 2026 presents it in a specific version, Cinema Impero #Roma, alternating between a singular experience addressed to one person at a time and a collective viewing that gathers a group of participants.
From the works Milite Ignoto (2015), Oasi (2018), Punteggiatura (2018), Bologna St. 173, Curva Cieca (2021), Oblio (2022), my research has focused on how to activate narrative strategies that allow an oblique and transversal investigation of the relationship binding my double provenance — historical and cultural, Eritrean and Italian. The affective element has been the thread weaving together narratives from macroHistory and narratives from microHistory, allowing new stories to be told. My new research, Cinema Impero, turns its attention to the moving image. Cinema, as a language, has always had the power to create imaginaries, but also to shape and construct narratives, above all in its most propagandistic and regime-serving configurations. The project’s title takes its name from a cinema — the Cinema Impero — located in the centre of Asmara, built in 1937. It is an art deco architecture, a matrix of Italian Rationalism, whose name makes its form, content and function unmistakably clear. What interests me is bringing into focus a certain resonance between the role cinema played during the fascist regime and what Artificial Intelligence represents today — a language aimed at surprising and, at the same time, perverting and altering reality, in service of a speculative and convenient narrative. This manipulative principle is intrinsic to the human, who must also be credited with the capacity to discern, to choose, to restore truth, to reposition actively in the face of historical and present narratives, small or large. Cinema Impero is a metanarrative that brings into dialogue different spatiotemporal planes and different linguistic elements: video materials from the historical archive of the Istituto Luce and the artist’s private archive, narrated and interpreted by two voices and two intelligences — one artificial, one emotional. Cinema Impero is a black box: the black box that contemplates cinematic, theatrical and algorithmic language. Within this multi-perceptual device, conceived for one viewer at a time, the person — placed at the centre of macro-narratives — is invited to converge towards a warm proximity: a space of intimate alterity, between narrator and listener.
– Muna Mussie
Muna Mussie (Eritrea, 1978) began her artistic path in 1998, training and working as an actress and performer with Teatrino Clandestino until 2001. In 2002 she attended the European Advanced Training Course for the Actor, led by Cesare Ronconi of Teatro Valdoca, continuing the collaboration as an actress until 2012. From 2001 to 2005 she was a founding member of the research collective Open, where, following the performance opentolikemunamussie (2005), she began developing the desire to investigate her own ways of inhabiting the stage. Muna Mussie’s work — between gesture, vision and word — investigates the languages of the stage, performance and visual arts to give form to the tension that arises between different expressive poles. Productions include MadrePatria (2006), Più che piccola, media (2007), Con Permesso (2008), Ti ho sognato, ma non eri il protagonista (2009). She is the co-author with Flavio Favelli of the clothing collection FFMM (2007–2009). International stage projects include Monkey See, Monkey Do (Chapter I–II, 2011–2012). Subsequent productions — including the installation and performance Milite Ignoto (2015), the performances Oasi (2018), Curva (2019), Curva Cieca (2021) and PF DJ (2021) — investigate ghostly appearances and minor history. Object-based interventions include يونلعب the project Punteggiatura (2018) and የቦሎኛ ጎዳ ر Bologna St. 173. Il sole d’agosto, in alto nel cielo, batte forte (2021), a solo exhibition at Archive Sites Milano on the concepts of home, citadel, fortress and freedom. These are followed by the performance Bientôt l’été (2021) on mental nomadism and wandering, and PERSONA (2022), an ad personam encounter mediated through the practice of sewing. The recent projects Oblio (2022) and Oblio/Pianto del Muro (2022) introduce a research strand on public art. The performative action The Perfect Human from Sunrise to Sunshine (2023), extended across an entire day, interrogates the essence of what it means to be human today. She has published the record Curva Cieca Oblio ኩርቫ ዕውር ምርሳዕ in collaboration with Massimo Carozzi (Xong collection – dischi d’artista, Xing 2024); PR – Public Relations (2025); Domus Feroniae (2025), a solo exhibition and winner of Arcolaio Artprize. The project Bologna St. 173, Un viaggio a ritroso, winner of Italian Council 11, 2022, led to the creation of the works يونلعب UROBORO ኦውሮቦሮ (2024), የቦሎኛ ጎዳ ر Bologna St. 173 (2024) and NAKFA-NAKBA (2024), which have entered the collection of MAMbo Bologna. Her work has been presented at Art Fall/PAC Ferrara, Xing/Raum and Live Arts Week Bologna, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Turin, Museo Marino Marini Florence, Workspace Brussels, Kaaitheater Brussels, MAMbo Bologna, Santarcangelo Festival, Museion Bolzano, ERT Bologna, Rue d’Alger/Manifesta 2020 Marseille, Archive Books Milan, SAVVY Contemporary Berlin, ArteFiera Bologna, HangarBicocca Milan, Biennale Democrazia Turin, Mattatoio Rome, Sesc São Paulo, Centrale Fies Dro, Black History Month Florence, Spazio Griot Rome, Villa Romana Florence, Mucem Marseille, MAXXI L’Aquila, Høstscena Festival Ålesund, OGR Turin, Musei Reali Turin, Kora Contemporary Arts Center Lecce, La Virreina Centre de la Imatge/IT Out OFF/Manifesta 2024 Barcelona, Biennale Donna XX Ferrara, AR/GE Kunst Bolzano, 24th International Exhibition of Triennale Milano, Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Cineteca Bologna.
written and directed by Muna Mussie
video editing Luca Mattei
curator Martina Angelotti
africanist anthropologist Simao Amista
musician Matteo Nobile
sound designer SimonLuca Laitempergher
translator Susan Zuckerman
thanks to Filmon Yemane for sharing AI technology dedicated to blind and visually impaired people
project supported by blOOm, network for one-on-one creations developed by Fondazione Armunia, Primavera dei Teatri, Santarcangelo Festival, Sardegna Teatro, Triennale Milano Teatro
within LANDING, project supported by Ministero degli Affari Esteri and Cooperazione Internazionale realised by Santarcangelo Festival
with the support of Passage Festival, IIC Strasburgo and the co-production of MUCIV-Museo delle Civiltà
thanks to area Export di ATER Fondazione for their invaluable support
in collaboration with Cinema Troisi, MUCIV-Museo delle Civiltà, MACRO – Museo d’arte contemporanea
Muna Mussie is present at ST26 with the support of SIAE
ph. Pietro Bertora / Santarcangelo Festival