In Rome there is the smallest cinema

In Rome there is the smallest cinema in the world

This is the Cinema dei Piccoli, a room dedicated to children born in 1934 where cartoons were initially shown. This is why the Romans began to call it “Mickey Mouse House”, but then Disney did not like it and opposed the use of this name.

The first screen was a sheet, while today it has an area of 5 × 2.5, so small that in 2005 it was awarded the Guinness Book of World Records for the smallest cinema in the world. The Cinema dei Piccoli is a wooden building where about sixty people can be seated inside. It is located in Viale Della Pineta, inside the Villa Borghese Park (Porta Pinciana side) – Largo Marcello Mastroianni.

As the official website of the small theater points out, the Cinema Dei Piccoli began its film career for children in April 1934: in comedy and cartoon programming. A couple of years later, a wooden silhouette with a large Mickey Mouse equipped with a movie camera is placed on the roof of the cinema and the word MICKEY HOUSE is added to the CINEMA DEI PICCOLI sign.

Disney warns the owner not to use the name of the famous mouse and the writing is deleted. However, the sign with the image of Mickey Mouse remained on the cinema until the early 1970s and the name was imprinted in the memory of Roman spectators who, children of that time, still call it “Cinema Mickey Mouse” today.

The Dei Piccoli was closed during the war, but after the war it began to operate at full speed, attended by a varied and enthusiastic audience.
With the closure of Villa Borghese to traffic at the beginning of the 70s (until then cars were circulating there) the small cinema goes into crisis and the owner (Giuliano Annibali, son of Alfredo who built it) turns to Enzo Fiorenza, founder of AIACE and later one of the inventors of the Roman Estate, who decides to take care of its programming.

In the afternoon, fairy tales for children (Walt Disney, but also Atamanov and the great school of Eastern Europe) and in the evening, auteur films for “grown-ups”: thus the Piccolo d’Essai was born, a bizarre example of a cinema for children that sera turns into a cineclub.
On January 1, 1980 the young couple formed by Roberto Fiorenza (son of Enzo) and Caterina Roverso took over the management, which they still care today, starting a series of maintenance works that will culminate in 1991 with a complete restoration of the wooden structure.

Parallel to the collaboration with the Cineteca Nazionale, which exhibited hundreds of films that have made the history of cinema from 1993 to 1995 in the showcase of the Dei Piccoli, the work of cinema diffusion for schools begins. The themed educational itineraries (art, nature, civil commitment, history of cinema) combine different experiences in a single morning in Villa Borghese: films, observation and drawing workshops in the park, guided tours of the museum. The teaching activity is enriched every year with new paths and sees the participation of thousands of children.

In 2005 the request to enter the Guinness Book of extensive assessments on the size of the structure and on the activity of the cinema open daily to a paying public with 35 mm film projections. The “Guinness World Records Ltd assigns the Dei Piccoli the record of” building used as the smallest cinema in the world.