Cines was established in Rome on the first of April 1906, when the firm “Alberini & Santoni, manifattura di soggetti e films cinematografici”, founded in 1905 by Filoteo Alberini and D. Santoni, was transformed into a public limited company. The firm kept a film studio in via Appia Nuova (later called via Vejo), just outside the Porta S. Giovanni.

Alberini & Santoni's business was proving so successful that the two partners were able to start up Cines with a starting capital of 400,000 Lire, with the aim of producing films, manufacturing apparatus and trading in all kinds of accessories related to cinematography, photography and similar techniques. During the summer of 1906, after the production of around 20 films, of which ten were documentaries, the French director Gaston Velle joined Cines after a two-year post at Pathé, accompanied by the set designers Dumesnil and Vasseur, and the cameramen Vauzèle, an expert in special effects. That year saw the production of the films “La Malìa dell'Oro”, “Pierrot innamorato” and “Viaggio in una stella”. Having joined Cines as an actor, Mario Caserini began his career as a director in 1907, when Gaston Velle returned to Paris in the second half of the year.
It was at this time that the production of historical works and costume dramas (both genres in which Cines would excel) started with “il Fornaretto di Venezia”, “Otello” and “Garibaldi”. In 1908, Carlo Rossi, the founder of Rossi & Co. of Turin (dissolved and transformed into “Italia Films di Sciamengo e Pastrone), joined the management of the company. Rossi represented Cines at the European Cinema Industry meeting held in Paris at the beginning of 1909 by the Société Française Du Cinématographe. After Rossi's departure from Cines, Count Salimei ran the firm until 1911. Meanwhile, alongside Caserini, who was known at the time as “the magician of mise-en-scène”, a young painter, Enrico Guazzoni, taken on as a director by Alberini himself, began to stand out. Having become the fervent disciple of Caserini, he achieved his first personal success with “Brutus” (1910).
During the period of 1909-10, Cines had to face the great crisis that struck all the European and American film studios, sparked off by a combination of reasons, one of which being poor-quality overproduction, no longer tolerated by the ever more demanding audiences of the time. Indeed, as the formerly large profits decreased strongly, the “Banco di Roma” delegated the task of liquidating the enterprise to Count Fassini. However, instead he reorganized it brilliantly, selecting a board of directors incorporating himself as chief executive, Ernesto Pace as president, Carlo Amato as vice president, and don Prospero Colonna, the Prince of Sonnino, Baron Giovanni Alberto Blanc, and Pietro Mancada, Count of Caltanissetta and Prince of Paternò, as the board members. The company's capital was raised to 3 million Lire, with a stock price of L 50 each.
From that point on, Cines was able to guarantee the Italian and the foreign tradesmen one drama (about 600 m.), one comedy, two farces and two documentaries per week. The establishment was supplied with the latest equipment, and permanent film crews had been engaged to work simultaneously. The actors (among them Amleto Novelli and Gianna Terribili-Gonzales) were under long term contracts, and a permanent screenwriting studio was set up.
In 1911 the Italian company Cines, Ltd, based in Rome, with a deposited capital of £3,000,000. appeared in the official list of the International Exhibition of Industry and Work in Turin, declaring the following establishments:

 Rome: cinematographic manufacture;
 Padova: manufacture of film and aforementioned similar items (under direction of Mr Porchain, chief engineer, and Mr Planchar, already managers of the Lumière film factory in Lyon);
 Vigodarzere: production of sensitive film and aforementioned similar items;
 Branches: Paris, London, Barcelona; Moscow, Berlin;
 Agencies: New York, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Sydney, Yokohama, Hong Kong, Cairo.

Cines was thus the first production company that manufactured blank film itself, and such autonomy was one of the contributing factors of its great development. Still in 1911, in the International Cinematographic Competition, published by the International Cinematographic Exhibition in Turin, Cines won second prize in the artistic category with the artistic film “San Francesco o il Poverello d'Assisi”, and the didactic film “Il tamburino sardo” (first prize was won by Ambrosio for “Nozze d'Oro” based on a script by A. Frusta, and for “Le Farfalle” by Guido Gozzano and R.Omegna). Given the great success it achieved, one particular initiative by Cines must not be overlooked: during the war between Italy and Turkey, in order to please the soldiers in Libya and their families, a cameraman from Cines, Silvio Cocanari, shot short documentaries in every Italian city, taking pictures of many family groups gathered outdoors, so that the army watching them could have the illusion of recognizing their far away relatives.
With the 1912 film “Quo vadis?” by Enrico Guazzoni, at the cost of L 60,000, Cines reached the ranks of the world's top production companies, confirming its own excellence in 1913 with “Antonio e Cleopatra” (also by Guazzoni) costing L 300,000; expenses only recovered by transferring the film to the English market for a year.
The same year, Cines launched an international competition for a film script (with a first prize of L 25,000). The winning script, “il Tesoro di Rampsinite”, written by Amerigo Scarlatti from Piacenza, which succeeded in standing out from the other 962 candidates, could not be made into a film because of the outbreak of the first World War. The conflict caused a larger workload in the second half of 1914, not only for Cines, but for all European production companies. The Italian ones recovered quickly, and Cines, having employed brilliant actresses (such as Lynda Borrelli) and directors such as Nino Oxilia, G. Antamoro, N. Martoglio, Carmine Gallone, I. Illuminati, A. Palermi and A. Genina (the successors of Caserini, Guazzoni and Negroni), produced films of great importance.
In 1918 Baron Fassini left the role of Chief Executive and resigned from the board of directors, which was as yet unchanged ( except for the arrival of the lawyer Alessandro Alessandri). In 1919 the company became a member of the “Unione Cinematografica Italiana” and in 1921 suspended its activity.
In 1929, the producer-tradesman-distributor Stefano Pittaluga, thanks to encouragement and subsidies from the government, acquired the film studios of via Vejo, and the following year restored the name of “Cines”. Indeed, the first “talking picture” of the Italian cinematographic revival, “La canzone dell'amore” (1930) carried that glorious label. After the death of Pittalungo (1931), Ludovico Toeplitz took up the management of Cines and kept it until 1935. With the writer Emilio Cecchi at the head of production, called upon by Toeplitz, Cines had a particularly interesting output during the years 1932-33, including films such as “Palio”, “la Tavola dei Poveri”, “Gli uomini che mascalzoni” by Vittorio de Sica, “Acciaio”, “1860”, and “T'amerò sempre”. This second season of productivity came to an end for Cines in 1934, and the studios in via Vejo were torn down in 1935 having been destroyed by a fire and rendered unusable.
On the 9th of February, 1942, the authorization to resurrect Cines was given and entrusted to the producer Guido Oliva. The third incarnation of Cines was under state control, and was bound up with the activities of the ENIC (the Italian National Organisation of Cinematographic Industry) that allowed distribution through its own network of cinemas. Cines' productions of 1942-43 aroused a good deal of interest and included films such as “la Bella Addormentata”, “Avanti c'è posto”, “Quattro Passi tra le nuvole”, “Harlem,fuga a due voci”, “Sorelle Materassi”, “Enrico IV”, “La Locandiera” and “Il cappello da prete”. After the 8th of September 1943 (the day Badoglio announced the armistice with Great Britain and the USA), Cines was moved to Venice by the republican Fascists and produced a few films in 1944.
During the summer of 1949, Cines was relaunched yet again, once more under the control of the State. The fourth Cines, managed by Carlo Civallero until November 1955 and after by Aldo Borrelli, produced, among others: “Due mogli sono troppe”, “E' più facile che un cammello...”, “L'Edera”, “La città si difende”, “Il brigante di Tacca del Lupo”, “Altri tempi”, “La voce del silenzio”, “Tempi nostri” and “Amici per la pelle”, in addition to numerous co-productions with French production companies and films in participation with other Italian companies.
Following this glorious season, in 1958, Cines suspended its activity and was liquidated by the Minister of Finance.

In 2006, the centenary of its initial foundation, a new Cines was brought to life at the hands of the publishing group Persiani Editore – New Media Entertainment. Under private control, the company has salvaged the name and the artistic legacy of the previous administrations.

The artistic direction has been entrusted to the illustrious Leonardo Bragaglia, a noteworthy director and theatrical essayist in his own right, nephew of Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, Anton Giulio Bragaglia and of the engineer Francesco Bragaglia, ex-Chief Executive of Cines at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Translation by Valentina Benini and Charlotte Mitchell