Going Down

IF YOU FIND YOURSELF WALKING THROUGH THE PRATI NEIGHBORHOOD OF ROME, a relatively quiet area in the long shadow of the Vatican, you might just stumble upon a small storefront movie theater: Azzurro Scipioni. The two-screen cinema, nestled between street vendors hawking cheap pashminas and smartphone chargers, is the province of Italian filmmaker, poet, and philosopher Silvano Agosti. There, among neon signs and mid-century movie kitsch, Agosti (who is also the proprietor) claims to “only show masterpieces.” And if you’re lucky, he might be screening one of his own films—darkly humorous, sometimes aggressive social commentaries that are unsubtitled in English and hard to come by in the U.S.

This past October, I happened to be one such lucky visitor. When I entered, Signor Agosti emerged, stamped.