Rolli Digital Week
When the doors couldn’t open, we told their story anyway. The video production that in 2020 turned a public-health restriction into a model of digital cultural outreach, bringing the Palazzi dei Rolli all the way to Rai.
01A restriction turned into a model
In May 2020 the public-health emergency forced the City of Genoa to suspend in-person visits to the Palazzi dei Rolli: no open doors, no lines in the courtyards of Strada Nuova. Rather than cancel the event, the administration decided to bring the entire heritage online, turning Rolli Days into its first digital edition: Rolli Digital Week.
Renovatio — then Xenia Creative Team — was tasked with producing the content: filming, editing and directing the scientific communication, in close coordination with the Rolli Days outreach team, under the scientific coordination of Giacomo Montanari and the outreach coordination of Marianna Pisanu, under the direction of Events Councillor Barbara Grosso.
02A double format: long-form stories and shorts
The format alternates two registers. On one side, outreach videos dedicated to individual palaces, with a science communicator guiding the viewer from entrance hall to grand salon, exploring the architecture, decorative schemes and the families who commissioned and lived in them. On the other, short thematic “bites” designed for social media, unpacking curiosities and anecdotes in just a few minutes — from the origin of the name of Piazza Fontane Marose to the bond between Giuseppe Verdi and Genoa.
A group of young science communicators lent their voice and face to the project, bringing the camera into entrance halls, grand staircases and frescoed salons normally closed to the public: among the palaces featured were Palazzo Rosso, Palazzo Brignole Duraz, Palazzo Fieschi Negrone, Palazzo Tobia Pallavicino, Palazzo Balbi Senarega, Palazzo Interiano Pallavicino, Palazzo Angelo Giovanni Spinola, Palazzo Ambrogio di Negro and Palazzo Tomaso Spinola Pessagno.
03The story on video
One of the video stories produced for Rolli Digital Week
04From screen to Rai
Around the event a promotional spot was also produced for broadcast on Rai, marking the event’s leap in scale: from a city event to a story able to reach a national audience. Rolli Digital Week thus turned a restriction imposed by the emergency into a model of digital cultural outreach, replicated and refined in later editions — up to the chapter Rolli e Guzzi, dedicated to the Moto Guzzi centenary.
«When the palaces couldn’t open, we told their story anyway — bringing the Rolli into every home.»
Rolli Digital Week, May 2020