My family and Alberto Sordi had a long acquaintance. I loved Alberto Sordi very much. He was a phenomenon. He was a great friend and he was a beautiful person. He was a loner. And then what they say about his alleged avarice is not true. Alberto was stingy with himself in order to be able to help others more and better, in other forms. He worked 365 days a year because he made two, sometimes three films a year and did it for 60 years… he was absolutely jovial, good-natured. His prank calls were hilarious. A true concentrate of Italian qualities and flaws. Once Alberto came to dinner with us. My mother had told him: Alberto, do you know that at the school where I teach, in Trastevere, they found your report card? Come and see us celebrating you. And he went there. It made all Trastevere and my mother happy, for which he had a real passion. He left us when I was 20 and my brother Carlo 23.
Being born and living in Rome means having a glittering background, intriguing, that creates curiosity. Rome is past, present and future: the emblem of what at this moment is the life of humanity on earth; I imagine it a little from a privileged point of view than that of our city. When I leave my home, the first thing I would like to do is go to the Oratorio dei Filippini, in Piazza della Chiesa Nuova: that large space with the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, which was flanked by that architectural wonder designed by Borromini, gives me great joy. Seeing this ingenious structure next to a classic building like, in fact, the facade of the New Church for me is wonderful. Under the cobblestones of this city, there is also the lamp of Aladdin that you can rub and pull out images that turn into objects and living forms. The city is full of creativity that blocks those who want to be creative and can not adapt to the creative power of Rome. You must discover Rome without disturbing it. You have to accept it for what it is, for what it is, and you cannot rape it as it is constantly being abused in our day. In 1994 I studied a formula by which to tell the monuments and the artistic works of the churches with a language similar to that of a fiction; there were actors who, acting on a script, described the monuments and beauties inside the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere. It was my first short film. On the fifth centenary of the birth of Giorgio Vasari I wrote a subject that later became my docu-film about the Italian artist. A few years before that, I did Futurism. I made a documentary that was more of a tribute to my father. I’m a curious man, of shapes and colors. And then I like history. Cinema is a moving image: time and space are recreated. Photography fixes an image, it is a thief who steals something. You have to “steal” with dexterity and there is only one moment when the target can do it.
