Wanted in Rome

From 17 to 19 September, Rome's grandest exhibition hall hosts three days of light installations by day and DJ sets until late, with free daytime entry. Rome's Palazzo Esposizioni hosts the debut edition of Mageía from 17 to 19 September, a new multidisciplinary format bringing together visual art, sound experimentation and new technologies inside one of the capital's major cultural venues. The festival's name comes from the Greek magheía, evoking transformation, wonder and expressive suggestion - a fitting label for three days in which the 19th-century building on Via Nazionale becomes both gallery and dancefloor. The visual side of the programme, billed as the Art Takeover, is the work of Quiet Ensemble, the Rome-based studio known for its research into light, technology and sensory perception. Their site-specific intervention reworks some of the studio's best-known pieces in direct dialogue with the geometry of the p The exhibition rooms are free to visit from 10.00 to 16.00, with booking via the festival website. The evening programme runs from 18.00 to 02.00 and is ticketed; entry is restricted to over-18s. Each night has its own identity. Thursday opens with No Limits Party, dedicated to Rome's music scene, with Gemitaiz, Sine, Gengis, Frenetik and Whtrtrsh on the decks. Friday: Aeterna turns to contemporary electronica and club culture, with a live set from Elasi, Korean DJ Shubostar, Whitesquare and international veteran Alex Neri. Saturday: The closing night, an Ed Banger Night, pays tribute to the French Touch movement, with Breakbot & Irfane among the headliners. Surprise guests are promised each evening. Mageía is conceived, produced and staged by Lux Entertainment, in partnership with Roma Capitale and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo. On 17, 18 and 19 September the palazzo's study room, bookshop and Caffè delle Esposizioni will close at 18.00. For full programme and tickets see mageia.it.

Rome's French Academy hosts five days of new cinema from 16 to 20 September, with 12 films in competition and open-air screenings in the villa's gardens. The Villa Medici Film Festival opens on Wednesday for its sixth edition, bringing five days of contemporary cinema to the Accademia di Francia a Roma. Running until 20 September, the festival features almost forty events, including twelve films in competition, thematic focuses, guest-curated selections and special screenings, many held under the stars in the piazzale of the historic villa on the Pincio. The opening night, Wednesday 16 September at 20.30, sees the Italian premiere of Les yeux verts (Green Eyes), the new film by French directors Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh, who will attend the screening in person. The film follows an 11-year-old girl in the Landes region of France who enters her brother's dreams after he falls into a mysterious sleep when their family faces deportation. Twelve films make up the international competition this year, selected for their exploration of pressing social and political themes: collective memory, colonial legacies, migration and the transition to adulthood among them. The selection was curated by a committee including Mathilde Henrot, Clément Postec, Nicolas Raffin and Valentine Umansky. An international jury - artist and filmmaker Rosa Barba, French-Iranian actress and director Zar Amir Ebrahimi, and director Radu Jude – will award two prizes at the close of the festival: the Villa Medici Prize for Best Film and a Jury Prize, both carrying a cash award and the chance for winners to return to the villa for a residency. The festival's Focus strand includes Contrechamp, pairing works by Villa Medici fellows with documentary and fiction films, and Carte Blanche selections curated by jury members according to their own tastes. This year's edition is dedicated to the memory of Lili Hinstin, the programmer and former head of Villa Medici's film activities who helped launch the festival in 2021. A special screening of Born in Flames will honour her on Saturday 19 September. Founded in 1666 under Louis XIV, the Académie de France à Rome has been based at Villa Medici, the 16th-century villa on the Pincio hill, since 1803. The full programme and tickets are available at villamedici.it.

The city-wide festival on innovation and the future takes place from 21-27 September across 11 thematic hubs. Rome Future Week is back for its fourth edition, running from 21 to 27 September, once again turning the capital into a diffuse "living lab" of innovation, culture and enterprise. Organisers expect more than 70,000 people to take part across hundreds of events held throughout the city. This year's theme is Materia Prima ("raw material"), an invitation to look at the people, skills, ideas and relationships from which transformation takes shape. The festival is realised in collaboration with Rome city council's department for productive activities, equal opportunities and investment attraction, with the Lazio region acting as institutional main partner under the regional FESR Lazio 2021-2027 programme. Future Hubs across Rome The programme is structured around eleven Future Hubs, thematic locations dedicated to areas including artificial intelligence, work, health, space, mobility, housing, sustainability and new forms of enterprise. Among them is Neura, focused on AI, and Celeste, dedicated to the space economy, which on 24 September hosts "Space for Earth" at Industrie Fluviali on Via del Porto Fluviale. Other confirmed events include a discussion on the digital euro and the future of money on 25 September, opened by Bank of Italy deputy director general Chiara Scotti, and a special "Best University Short Film" award created in partnership with Rai Cinema's Studenti in Corto project, which celebrates emerging young filmmakers. Schools and young people For the second year running, the Base Futuro project brings Rome Future Week directly into local schools, involving seven institutes, around 20 classes and roughly 700 students in workshops and events across the week. Rome University of Fine Arts (RUFA), meanwhile, continues to host events open to the public at its Ostiense campus. Councillor for productive activities Valeria Baglio said the festival continues to demonstrate the capital's capacity to become a genuine innovation hub. For the full programme and locations see the official Rome Future Week website.

Schlein, Conte, Fratoianni and Bonelli Share a Stage, Not a Program..yet. Polling has told Italy's center-left the same thing for months: a united "campo largo," bringing together the Partito Democratico, Movimento 5 Stelle, Alleanza Verdi-Sinistra, Italia Viva and +Europa, could genuinely challenge Giorgia Meloni's government at the next election. What that same coalition can't yet manage is agreeing on what it would actually do in power, or even who would lead it. The clearest recent snapshot came on September 8, when PD leader Elly Schlein, M5S president Giuseppe Conte, and AVS co-leaders Nicola Fratoianni and Angelo Bonelli shared a stage at AVS's national festival in Rome, their first joint appearance since summer. More than two thousand party supporters turned out, many of them, according to reporting from the event, less interested in the leaders' abstract sparring than in getting a straight answer about where this coalition actually stands. Where They Actually Agree To be fair to the coalition, the picture isn't pure gridlock. When pressed to name what would top a first council of ministers under a center-left government, the four leaders produced a genuinely substantial list: recognition of a Palestinian state, an ambitious climate agenda pushed by Bonelli, a minimum wage and equal parental leave championed by Schlein, a wealth tax (patrimoniale) long advocated by Fratoianni, and, from Conte, repeal of laws he characterizes as restricting political dissent and civil protest, alongside a demand for clearer answers on migration and public security. Schlein, quoting an Italian pop lyric, joked the list of shared positions was so long it would take a while to get through. On paper, a minimum wage and a wealth tax aren't actually points of division inside the coalition, all three main parties broadly support both; the harder questions lie elsewhere. Ukraine: The Fracture That Won't Close The genuine, unresolved fault line is Ukraine, specifically whether Italy should keep sending weapons to Kyiv. M5S and AVS oppose continuing arms shipments; the PD treats continued support as what Schlein has called a "linea rossa," a red line the party isn't willing to cross. Fratoianni has tried to frame the gap as narrower than it looks, insisting there are no Russia sympathizers among the coalition's leaders and that everyone agrees Ukraine was the victim of aggression, with the real disagreement confined to how, not whether, to support Kyiv most effectively, arguing that backing Ukraine doesn't require indefinitely prolonging the war. Schlein has pushed a similar synthesis, arguing the coalition's five years of infighting still looks more coherent than the current government's own foreign policy record, and warning that a split here would simply hand Meloni another win by default. Whether that rhetorical bridge translates into an actual shared position remains unresolved as of mid-September. The Fights Beyond Ukraine Ukraine isn't the only sticking point. The coalition is also split over the Strait of Messina bridge project: PD, M5S and AVS voted together against it in Strasbourg in 2025, but positions have since diverged as the project has moved forward domestically. There's also a real trust problem sitting just beneath the surface: Conte has openly voiced doubts about including Matteo Renzi and Italia Viva in the coalition, doubts Schlein has tried to wave off by arguing the bloc shouldn't be built party-by-party or name-by-name, but around a coherent shared program instead, without fully resolving Conte's underlying skepticism. Then there's the coalition's own internal governance: who leads it, and how. All four leaders have publicly agreed that a common program needs to come before choosing a candidate for prime minister, a sequencing choice that's also proven convenient for delaying a decision none of them seem eager to force. Schlein has added a further complication, cautioning that the coalition shouldn't even assume Italy's electoral law will pass as currently drafted, adding a layer of institutional uncertainty on top of the political one. M5S's own internal consultation process was set to close September 20, opening a new phase of "grande consultazione popolare," a broader public consultation Bonelli has said the coalition intends to run through October to help hammer out its shared program, with the formal coalition working table expected to convene toward the end of the month. A Coalition Racing Its Own Clock What makes the coalition's internal divisions particularly costly is the calculation nearly every commentator covering the story keeps repeating: Meloni's government, for all its own documented divisions on foreign policy over the past five years, has still managed to govern as a functioning majority. If the center-left's path back to power genuinely runs through unity, as its own polling suggests, then the gap between the list of things Schlein, Conte, Fratoianni and Bonelli agree on and the list of things still splitting them, Ukraine chief among them, may end up mattering less than how quickly they can close it. October's consultation process is meant to be exactly that test. Whether it produces a real program or just another photo opportunity on another party's stage is, for now, still an open question. Marco Iacobucci Epp / Shutterstock.com

Reform introducing majority bonus seats and limited preference voting clears Palazzo Madama amid opposition protests, with a final vote in the lower house expected next month.Italy's senate approved a draft electoral law on Tuesday, sending the bill back to the lower house for a third and likely final reading ahead of next year's general election. The contentious bill, backed by the ruling right-wing coalition, passed with 113 votes in favour, 71 against and two abstentions. Opposition senators held up placards reading "No to the Scam Law" before the vote, and continued their protest in the chamber as the result was announced, news agency ANSA reports. A proportional system with a majority bonusThe reform, which the governing coalition calls the "Stabilicum" and opposition parties have dubbed the "Melonellum" after prime minister Giorgia Meloni, would replace the current mixed first-past-the-post and proportional system with one based on proportional representation. A coalition that wins at least 42 per cent of the vote would receive bonus seats - up to 70 additional deputies and 35 additional senators, capped at 220 deputies and 113 senators in total - to secure a working majority in parliament. If no coalition reaches that threshold, or the chamber and senate produce diverging results, seats would be allocated on a purely proportional basis instead. A national threshold of three per cent would apply for individual parties, with a "best loser" mechanism allowing one party below the threshold within a coalition over 10 per cent to still win seats. Limited preference voting restoredThe most significant change made during the senate's debate was the reintroduction of limited preference voting. Lead candidates on party lists would remain "blocked", but voters could express up to three preferences among the following six names on the list. The amendment, put forward by senator Marco Lisei of Meloni's right-wing Fratelli d'Italia party, passed on 10 September. Party lists would also need to alternate candidates by gender from the second name onward, and coalitions and parties would be required to name in advance the candidate they intend to propose to the president of the republic for prime minister - though the bill formally preserves the head of state's constitutional prerogative over that appointment. Higher signature threshold for new partiesOne of the most contentious elements concerns ballot access. Parties not already represented in parliament would need to collect 6,000 signatures per constituency instead of the current 1,500, meaning a party contesting the whole country would need at least 450,000 signatures nationwide. Parties with a parliamentary group as of 31 December 2025 would be exempt from the requirement. Political reactionsOpposition MPs argue the bonus-seat mechanism is unconstitutional and accuse the government of rewriting the rules because it fears losing next year's election. Former prime minister Matteo Renzi told the chamber the law "was born because you're afraid of losing, and you will lose," pointing out that Meloni had criticised similar blocked-list mechanisms in 2016. The centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) senate leader Francesco Boccia criticised both the scale of the majority bonus and the removal of full gender alternation among list leaders, saying the change would push women out of parliament, Open reports. Government parties defended the bill as a return to genuine competition. Roberto Rosso, of the centre-right Forza Italia, noted that several opposition parties had previously supported blocked lists and preference systems similar to those they now criticise, while Fratelli d'Italia's Andrea De Priamo said the law puts "everyone in a position to compete." What happens nextThe bill returns to the chamber of deputies, where a general debate is scheduled for 28 September, with detailed examination and a final vote expected in early-to-mid October, before parliament turns to the budget session. The chamber narrowly rejected a similar preference-voting amendment by a single vote in July, and electoral legislation can be subject to a secret ballot if requested by 30 MPs or a parliamentary group, raising the prospect of dissenting votes within the majority. The government is reportedly considering whether to attach a confidence vote to the bill. Should it clear the chamber, the draft law would go to President Sergio Mattarella, who by convention comments only once legislation has received final parliamentary approval. Photo credit: Alessia Pierdomenico / Shutterstock.com