«Better a civil separation than a sad marriage, as happened to me and Johanna»- Corriere.it

Fabio Volo And Victoria Puccini in A great will to live, the movie from 5 on Prime based on his book. They have everything to be happy, but they can’t be happy. Peers, beautiful, healthy, a son. It is not enough. An invisible crisis, without betrayal, erodes the couple, who fall apart after a camper trip to Norway that was supposed to put things right. «An adventurous journey breaks the routine, many small choices are made, leaving the comfort zones. They are occasions in which we rediscover ourselves. But that’s not enough», says director Michela Andreozzi.

Vittoria, an architect, an unpredictable woman, tells her that in her career she takes a step back for her family, and holds it against her; he, says Fabio, an engineer, rational “tends to function more than to live, he doesn’t have a great sentimental education and is unable to express his emotions”.

Better a civil separation than a sad marriage. A bit like what happened to Fabio, «there are autobiographical cues that I then experienced, I separated after ten years from my Icelandic partner, Johanna, with whom I have two children aged 9 and 7. The camper is a personal experience. There I park wherever I want and write, as I do when I take the Freccia Rossa. I can’t wait to catch a train.’ Eleven books, 8 million copies sold worldwide.

Not bad for someone who’s in eighth grade. Fabio, what stage is he in life? “I’ll be 51 in June, e maybe i’m learning to enjoy life. It has always been a constant struggle with a sense of duty. I was a baker, a bricklayer, a waiter». Something stays with you, “I’m someone who doesn’t leave leftovers at the table and turns off the lights”.

next movie, A new life, also based on one of his novels, is partly modeled on his poor father, “a hard worker, happy only when he drove his 850 Fiat which he however had to sell due to debts”. And in the book he buys it back from him, «authorizing myself to be happy, living with feelings of guilt. Well, I don’t want my children to be as comfortable in unhappiness as I have been.” Fabio Volo does not identify with what he does, «work is not my whole life»; he says he’s not nice, “I can be funny but I go every day”; he doesn’t live in Rome, «where films are decided on the terraces».

He’s not an award-winning artist, literary or cinematic, and he doesn’t miss festivals because they don’t belong to his imagination. He has a strong spirituality, “I practice yoga, meditation and help myself with a psychotherapist, I’ve changed two or three, I’ve tried everything, I have a team that supports me”. A loved, successful outsider.