The writer Francesco Piccolo, 59 years old, from Caserta, Strega Award 2014 with “The desire to be like everyone” and screenwriter of films such as “Il caimano” and “Habemus papam” by Nanni Moretti and “Nights magic” and “Drought” by Paolo Virzì is the new curator of the «Cinema» section of the Turin Book Fair. With the light-hearted way that distinguishes him he says he is available for just one question, so in his opinion he can avoid a possible interview, but in the end they become more.
How did you find out about your appointment?
«I discovered it today in Turin during the presentation of the Book Fair program. I was passing by the Gobetti Theater by chance and they told me I was one of the new consultants, so now I’ll have to organize myself. It is also completely coincidental that the director of the Salon Annalena Benini and I recently filmed a documentary on the poet Patrizia Cavalli.”
She’s always joking, but how will she organize herself?
«Fortunately they entrusted me with cinema and not literature. I will try to tell that world as I know it and with the people capable of doing so. Like all my new colleagues, I will be holding public meetings to explore a series of topics that are close to my heart.”
Who do you plan to involve?
«Having found out about it recently, I haven’t thought about anything yet. We are only at the beginning. What I can say is that Benini called the people he considered most suitable in each field and I believe that as a result we all willingly joined and we will do the same with the artists we respect the most.”
Your experience at the Salon?
«I’ve been coming here since before I started writing professionally, before it was at Lingotto, which is why I love it very much and I enjoy the idea of trying to do something more than other writers and in the past».
So what are your hopes for the next edition?
«The conditions are the best. As the former director Nicola Lagioia did, it seems to me that Benini also wants to pay attention to substance, excellence, the reason why we love this profession and why all of us curators do it.”