One of the most important chapters in Pienza’s film history is undoubtedly Romeo and Juliet by Franco Zeffirelli. Filmed between Palazzo Piccolomini, Piazza Pio II and other corners of the historic centre, the film left a profound mark on the town’s collective memory.
In 2018, Pienza celebrated the 50th anniversary of Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet”, filmed on location, with the exhibition entitled “What is a Youth?”, which gets its title from a song featured in the soundtrack.
The exhibition, held in Palazzo Piccolomini, includes original photos and costumes and creates a meeting point between the “film set” and the “Renaissance house”: a way of ensuring that the palace is perceived not just as a location, but as an authentic historical place, with its own identity, which the film had “reactivated”.
Along the same lines as the exhibition, the Pienza Photography Group, creators and collectors of images from films and “behind-the-scenes” footage of the film locations from 1950 to 2018 (with special focus on the extras), has created a small book that retraces the numerous and main film productions based in Pienza.
On 28 September 2018, in conjunction with the exhibition, the Municipality organised the screening of a restored version of the film in Piazza Pio II. Surprisingly, it attracted a large number of people, who are now older but were young extras in that film, also from neighbouring municipalities. The memory that resonated with everyone was the extraordinary grace of the female lead, English actress Olivia Hussey, who was just 15 years old when she played Juliet.