The National Museum of Cinema (Museo Nazionale del Cinema) located in Turin, Italy, is a motion picture museum fitted out inside the Mole Antonelliana tower.
The museum houses pre-cinematographic optical devices such as magic lanterns, earlier and current film technologies, stage items from early Italian movies and other memorabilia.
Along the exhibition path of about 3.200 m2 on five levels, it is possible to visit some areas devoted to the different kinds of film crew, and in the main hall, fitted in the temple hall of the Mole (which was a building originally intended as a synagogue), a series of chapels representing several film genres.
The museum keeps a huge and growing collection of film posters, stocks, and a library. A movie screen located in the Massimo multiplex, near to the museum, is reserved to retrospectives and other museum initiatives. The museum hosts several film festivals, the major and most prestigious of them being the Torino Film Festival.
Inside the museum there is also a panoramic elevator (opened in 2000) with transparent glass walls, that cover its 75 meters ride in 59 seconds, in the single open space span of the building, without middle floors, up to the 'small temple' which gives a 360 degrees panoramic view of the city. It is the museum with the biggest vertical extension of the world.
References:The Château de Foix dominates the town of Foix. An important tourist site, it is known as a centre of the Cathars. Built on an older 7th-century fortification, the castle is known from 987. In 1002, it was mentioned in the will of Roger I, Count of Carcassonne, who bequeathed the fortress to his youngest child, Bernard. In effect, the family ruling over the region were installed here which allowed them to control access to the upper Ariège valley and to keep surveillance from this strategic point over the lower land, protected behind impregnable walls.
In 1034, the castle became capital of the County of Foix and played a decisive role in medieval military history. During the two following centuries, the castle was home to Counts with shining personalities who became the soul of the Occitan resistance during the crusade against the Albigensians.