Cineteca del Friuli (Casa Gurisatti)

The Cineteca del Friuli occupies Casa Gurisatti, a fifteenth-century palazzo facing Gemona's Duomo. Founded after the 1976 earthquake, the film archive preserves cinema, photography and printed material connected with film history and the region.

Why it matters

The Cineteca grew out of film screenings organised in the tent settlements after the earthquake of 6 May 1976. The screenings led to the Cinepopolare association, founded in 1977, and to a collection that developed into a major Italian film archive. Since December 1997 the institution has been based in Casa Gurisatti, whose Venetian-Gothic trifora faces the cathedral. The palazzo was damaged in the earthquake and rebuilt during the 1980s; the Cineteca purchased the building from the parish in 2020.

What to notice

The Angelo R. Humouda library includes about 27,000 books and pamphlets on cinema, alongside film discs and videocassettes, posters, lobby cards and photographic materials. A dedicated section documents the 1976 Friuli earthquake through RAI footage, amateur film and records from the army and diocese. The Archivio Cinema del Friuli Venezia Giulia, inaugurated in 2008, is a climate-controlled depot designed to hold up to 50,000 film reels.

Context and history

In 1977, when funds to rebuild one of Gemona's destroyed cinemas fell short, the founders acquired twenty silent films on 16mm and began teaching cinema history in local schools. A meeting with Genoese collector Angelo R. Humouda that year led to systematic collecting. In 1982 Cineteca materials helped launch the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, and the archive joined FIAF in 1989. Its work is supported by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, the Ministry of Culture, Fondazione Friuli and the Comune.