Starting at 7:00 pm , the historic centre of Lucca will once again be transformed into a large open-air film set. Organized by the Lucca Film Festival , in collaboration with the Municipality of Lucca and the Chamber of Commerce of North-West Tuscany , Lucca Effetto Cinema takes cinema off the screen through performances, theatre, dance, installations, music and new forms of audience participation.

The event will feature theatre and dance companies, individual performers, and amateur associations from across Italy along with local businesses, shops, and hotels in the historic centre, invited to collaborate with the artists or develop their own productions. The performances, lasting 5-10 minutes and repeated at regular intervals throughout the evening, will be distributed across thematic areas dedicated to different film genres : horror, thriller, animation, musical, comedy, drama, war film, science fiction, fantasy, and western.

Moving through the streets, squares, and venues, the audience will be able to move from one imaginary world to another and freely construct their own path. Theatre, dance, acting, music, and movement thus become different tools for reinterpreting cinema, while the local businesses themselves become part of the narrative through sets, costumes, and spatial transformations.

A Cosplay contest also comes to Lucca Effetto Cinema for the first time, while maintaining a precise cinematic identity: the contest is in fact dedicated exclusively to cosplay inspired by a film or a specific cinematic version of the character .