CINEGELATO 2026
Thursday, August 6 | 6:30 PM
THE FORBIDDEN CITY (La città proibita)
Dir: Gabriele Mainetti
Italy, 2025, 138 min
Starring Enrico Borello, Liu Yaxi, Sabrina Ferilli, Marco Giallini, Luca Zingaretti
In Italian with English subtitles
SYNOPSIS
A fearless, fiery Chinese woman named Mae travels to Rome after learning that her older sister has gone missing. Mae is the second child in a poor Chinese family who grew up during China’s one-child policy and was forced to live in hiding throughout her childhood. To pay the hefty fine required to make Mae a legal citizen, her sister moved to Italy for work. Now, she has disappeared.
Mae’s search quickly leads her into the seedy underworld of prostitution rings and human trafficking, controlled by organized crime in the vibrant, multiethnic immigrant neighborhood of Piazza Vittorio. But when she discovers that her sister has run off with an older Roman lover, she reluctantly teams up with the man’s foul-mouthed, close-minded son, Marcello, a chef struggling to keep his failing restaurant afloat—the last remaining Italian-owned eatery in the neighborhood.
Despite their differences, these two lost souls gradually forge a connection through food, blending and sharing their culinary traditions: Roman and Chinese. Together, they are plunged into an action-packed descent into the criminal underworld of the Italian capital, where the Chinese mafia holds significant influence. What begins as a desperate search for his father and her sister soon transforms into a rip-roaring quest for vengeance.
Their mission challenges Marcello’s prejudices and deeply rooted Roman identity, while forcing Mae to confront her traumatic past and the guilt she carries over her sister’s fate.
2026-07-16 18:30