Art & cultureTowns & Architecture

Palazzo Adriano, the location of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso was filmed in the streets and squares of Palazzo Adriano nd used many of the locals as extras conferring fame on the village..

Palazzo Adriano,

is located on the ridge of Cozzo Braduscia,

almost 700 metres (2,296ft) above sea level.

Founded in the mid-15th century by Albanian refugees

who fled from the Turkish conquerors.

Central Piazza Umberto I boasts two important churches;

Greek Orthodox Santa Maria Assunta,

built in the 16th-century and then rebuilt

(the interior has a lovely iconostasis and an

icon of Our Lady of the Assumption);

and Santa Maria Del Lume,

which is Catholic and was founded in the 18th-century.

In the middle of the square,

bordered by Palazzo Dara,

now the Town Hall,

and Palazzo Mancuso,

sculpted in in 1607 a lovely octagonal fountain stands here.

Further up the hill,

in the oldest part of Palazzo Adriano,

the red dome of the 15th-century San Nicolò overlooks

the alleyways of this old district,

which was built around the fortress that once stood here

even before the town itself existed.

The film “Cinema Paradiso” at Palazzo Adriano

In 1990 the film Cinema Paradiso by the Sicilian director

Giuseppe Tornatore won an Oscar for the best foreign film.

The film tells the story of the arrival of cinema

(the “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso“) in an isolated village in Sicily

and the effect the big screen has on the main character,

a young boy.

Cinema Paradiso was filmed in the streets and squares

of Palazzo Adriano and used many of the locals as extras,

conferring fame on the village.

A majolica plaque commemorates the weeks the film unit

and the inhabitants of Palazzo Adriano

spent working together.