A schermo pieno. Eni nel cinema italiano

The photographic exhibition A schermo pieno. Eni in Italian Cinema, curated by Sergio Toffetti and on view from 21 May to 24 August 2026, is a journey through AGIP service stations as portrayed by Italian cinema: a map tracing the evolution of the landscape and the transformation of lifestyles, dreams, and individual and collective needs.

Installed on the ground floor of the Mole Antonelliana and produced in collaboration with Eni, the exhibition — featuring still photographs, film frames, images, and commercials — explores how Italian cinema transformed petrol stations and service areas into symbolic places of modernity, reflecting the social, economic, and cultural evolution of the country. From simple obligatory stops along the new roads of mobility, AGIP stations gradually became recurring presences and meeting points from which stories emerged, capable of crossing genres, eras, and imaginaries.

The exhibition follows a chronological path and is told through film frames and still photographs from 37 films: starting in 1943 with Ossessione by Luchino Visconti and arriving in 2014 with Perez by Edoardo De Angelis.

At the heart of the exhibition is a reproduction of the Agip service station in Piazzale Accursio, Milan, designed in 1953 by Mario Bacciocchi: a masterpiece of 20th-century architecture and a symbol of Italy’s economic boom. Inside, a monitor presents two edited sequences alternating with advertising commercials, while images and drawings on the walls illustrate the evolution of service station design. These works come from Eni’s Historical Archive, an institution that tells not only the story of a company, but also that of the Italian landscape and the communities that inhabited it. Among the images on display is the 1932 photograph with which MoMA in New York presented a petrol pump for the first time, recognizing it as a symbol of rationality and modernity.

In Italy, during the 1950s, AGIP transformed the design of service stations thanks to the work of Marcello Nizzoli, who made petrol pumps iconic by enhancing Luigi Broggini’s “six-legged dog.” These are just some examples of the collective memory embodied by Eni’s Historical Archive, whose value goes beyond the corporate sphere and takes on a civic and cultural significance. Across its 6 kilometres of documents, 500,000 images, 5,000 audiovisual items, and 70,000 technical drawings, one can read the transformations of cities, countryside, infrastructures, and places of work throughout the 20th century.

As cinema moved from black and white to colour, service stations appeared as sequences of colour and style in Italian-style road movies. Icons of the years of the economic boom, they also became the expression of a collective imagination intertwining technology, design, and the aspiration to wellbeing. Located along the country’s main roads and motorways — infrastructures that redefined time and space and shortened distances — service stations and the “six-legged dog” established themselves as some of the most recognizable symbols of a country projected towards modernity.

In Italian cinema, the Agip station is at once a familiar and suspended place, a stage for encounters, departures, night-time stops, and moments of personal transformation. At the same time, it is a privileged tool for observing how seemingly ordinary places contributed to shaping the country’s collective memory.

Through the materials on display, A schermo pieno thus reconstructs a constantly changing landscape: that of an Italy also traversed by the American myth, the euphoria of the economic miracle, and the emergence of new models of consumption and social life.

Complementing the exhibition is the catalogue A schermo pieno. Eni in Italian Cinema, published by Allemandi, featuring a rich selection of images and essays.

On the occasion of the exhibition opening, Cinema Massimo will present a screening of Dino Risi’s Il sorpasso — on Thursday 21 May 2026. The film is one of the works that best captured the many facets of Italy’s modernization after the Second World War. 

From 15 to 29 June 2026, again at Cinema Massimo, the film series A schermo pieno. Eni in Italian Cinema will present four films that helped depict Italy’s progress during the 1960s and 1970s. The programme includes Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione — 1943 — Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita — 1960 — Mario Bava’s Kidnapped – Cani arrabbiati — 1974 — and Elio Petri’s A ciascuno il suo — 1967 — all by directors who captured a country undergoing profound social change.

The exhibition is designed according to Design for All principles, in order to ensure easy access and enjoyment for all visitors. At the beginning of the exhibition route, the exhibition introduction is available in LIS — Italian Sign Language — and in easy-to-read text.