«They gave me 4 years to live, that’s why I chose cinema»- Corriere.it

Smiling, helpful, of one disarming sincerity. Gabriele Salvatores, one of the protagonists of the Bif & st International Film & TV Festival — where on the evening of March 25 he presents a preview of his latest film, The return of Casanova

— was told, with an open heart, on the occasion of the Masterclass that opened the festival directed by Felice Laudadio, linked to a tribute to one of his classics, Nirvana. To the critic Enrico Magrelli, in front of the packed Petruzzelli audience, he retraced the stages of his career. The arrival in Milan from Bari, the creation of the Teatro Elfo of which he is still a member and passionate supporter (The only utopia that has come true in my life).

The arrival at the cinema: They gave me four years to live. Then luckily it wasn’t like that. But in the hospital I decided: if I leave here I’ll do what I really like. Or the cinema. Which, as Fellini said, remembers better than reality. become a substitute for life. We take refuge in a film, for us you direct a world you control, you can play and end as you want. There is no script in life. You can at most be an actor and maybe even do it badly, he jokes. Sincere even when he tells
the regret not having had children. I thought I wouldn’t have time for them. Films are not children: you cannot embrace a film.

Remember the emotions of
‘Oscars for Mediterranean
. I don’t know if I deserved it. it was a bit of a stroke of luck. There was at least one film more deserving. Not a film school. Like the spider bite for Spider-Man, he gave me the superpower to choose to make different films, such as “Nirvana”. All different i of him, with a common thread common: the protagonists are children who are disobedient to the rules of the pack. I’ll talk about the latter with Toni Servillo and Fabrizio Bentivoglio tomorrow. Just makes some vague hints. For a long time I thought like Hitchcock “for you only one film for me the whole life”. I’m not so 100% sure. Today life is more important to me but cinema makes life more beautiful.