I know when I visit a city I like to explore neighbourhoods, I expect you do too. This is the first of an occasional series looking at those quartieri di Roma which are within striking distance of the city centre, but which offer glimpses into a lived city.
In Nanni Moretti’s fabulous 1993 film Caro Diario he scooters through deserted Ferragosto streets extolling his favourite quartiere, Garbatella. He likes, he says, to look in people’s houses and makes up film projects to justify his snooping. When asked what it’s about he invents a plot “it’s about a Trotskyist pasticciere in the conformist Italy of the nineteen fifties. It’s a musical”. So Garbatella, called “la Rossa” for its tradition of unions and partisans, always makes me think of Trostkyist pastry chefs breaking into song. It would, as he says, make a super film.
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