CINEMENTE - Psychoanalysis and Cinema Festival

A festival that looks inside cinema

CINEMENTE is the psychoanalysis and cinema festival that brings the Palazzo Esposizioni Roma Cinema Hall to life every spring, located on Via Nazionale in the heart of the Monti district. Conceived by the Italian Psychoanalytic Society and created in partnership with the Palazzo Esposizioni and the CSC-National Film Archive, the event offers a series of free screenings followed by a meeting between those who made the film and those who professionally study the inner lives of people.

The mechanism is simple and highly effective: you watch a film, then the room becomes a place for conversation. The director, two psychoanalysts, and the audience discuss together what the images have stirred, without technical jargon or academic lectures. The meetings are presented and coordinated by psychoanalyst Fabio Castriota, who guides the dialogue between cinematic language and psychoanalytic listening.

A different theme every year

Each edition is built around a theme that runs through all the selected titles. In recent years, the festival has explored the forms of love, destructiveness in its private and collective manifestations, and, in 2026, rebirths: that profound regeneration that can emerge like light after a crisis, trauma, or period of suffering. The selected films are never chosen for their aesthetic value alone, but for their ability to tell the dynamics of existence — illness, disability, complicated family ties, and time that heals and wounds.

Where and when

• Venue: Cinema Hall of the Palazzo Esposizioni Roma, entrance at Via Milano 9a (the building faces Via Nazionale 194), Municipality of Rome, Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, Lazio Region.
• Period: between May and June, on a weekly basis.
• Day and time: every Thursday, with screenings starting at 8:00 PM.
• Admission: free until all available seats are filled, with booking recommended.

The audience and the atmosphere

CINEMENTE is not a festival for experts only. In the room, you will meet cinephiles, students, psychology trainees, curious individuals, and local residents: the discussion following the screening is open to everyone, and the tone remains intentionally accessible. It is one of the few Roman events where, at the end of a film, people do not immediately get up to leave — they stay, they speak, they listen.

Why it is worth attending

Rome offers dozens of film festivals in the spring, but few manage to build such a direct relationship between author and spectator. Here, the director sits in the room and answers questions, the psychoanalysts do not comment on the film as critics but as readers of the human soul, and the result is often a lively and surprising debate. Add the setting of the Palazzo Esposizioni, one of the capital's main cultural spaces, and the fact that everything is free: these are more than enough reasons to mark the Thursdays of May and June in your calendar.

A project rooted in the city

The festival is supported as part of the cultural programming of Rome Capital and is part of a long tradition of psychoanalytic dissemination in the city. The collaboration with the CSC-National Film Archive also guarantees access to high-quality copies and titles from the Italian cinematic heritage, alongside the most recent releases of national auteur cinema.