Cinema Paradiso: Giancaldo's Sicily

A few years after the war, eight-year-old Salvatore, called Totò, is the mischievous, intelligent son of a war widow. His home in the film is the house at Via Molinello 110 in Palazzo Adriano. From here he slips away whenever he can to the Cinema Paradiso on the main square. The house is a private home, so look from the street only.

Location precision: The source gives a street number; the pin is the street, not the exact house.

This is the town square of the film. Young Totò spends every free moment at the Cinema Paradiso, and the production built the cinema's facade on Piazza Umberto I in Palazzo Adriano, overlooking an octagonal Baroque fountain dating from 1608. Filming here lasted three months and drew in part of the local population as extras. The facade was taken down when shooting ended, but the square remains, and the former town hall on it now houses a museum devoted to the film.

Visitor guidance: The piazza is public; the film museum is in the former town hall on the square.

The Cinema Paradiso you see from inside is a church. For the interior shots, the production chose the Church of Maria Santissima del Carmelo, also in Palazzo Adriano. In those scenes Alfredo teaches Totò to run the projector, and later a reel of nitrate film explodes in Alfredo's face, leaving him permanently blind. The church has a single nave and a portal framed by Corinthian columns.

Location precision: The pin marks Via XX Settembre, the street of the church; the exact building could not be pinned from the sources.

The farewell scene was shot at a real railway station. Lascari-Gratteri stands in for the station of the imaginary village of Giancaldo, where Salvatore says goodbye to his friend Alfredo and to his family before boarding the train. Alfredo has told him to leave and live "never looking back and never returning, even to visit". Salvatore does not go back to Giancaldo, Sicily, for thirty years.

Back for Alfredo's funeral, Salvatore meets the old man's widow, who tells him Alfredo followed his successes with pride. She gives him two things Alfredo left for him: an unlabelled film reel and the old stool he once stood on to operate the projector. In the film her home stands under the arch of Via Chiara. Back in Rome, Salvatore finds the reel holds every kiss the priest had ordered cut, spliced together into one.

Location precision: The source places the house under the arch of Via Chiara; the pin is the street, not the exact doorway.