For many the news of the death of the director Alessandro D’Alatri (ANSA CINEMA SHEET). it comes today like the lightning that breaks a meaningless life. Few knew of his struggle for a dignified life, after years of success, brightness, grace and talent: all that the Roman filmmaker (born February 24, 1955) was able to give generously in all his fields of artistic creation. With him goes an experimenter, a talented publicist, a sensitive director who is always capable of intercepting the new, but above all – for the great television audience – the magnificent accomplice of Maurizio De Giovanni, the author who brought success before Bastardi di Pizzofalcone with Alessandro Gassmann (2018) and then Il Commissario Ricciardi with Lino Guanciale in 2021. In both cases he had passed the hand for the following seasons, but the imprint of his style and his humanity went hand in hand with the literary invention of the writer and have amplified its success.
Fiery red hair, jaunty mustache, perennial dynamism are the first characteristics with which the young filmmaker comes to mind who enters the scene in 1991 with his first direction, Americano Rosso, so convincing as to earn him the David di Donatello and the Ciak d gold for best debut. But D’Alatri walked the set from a very young age, having made his debut as an actor and some might recognize him in the little Giorgio of the Garden of Vittorio De Sica’s Finzi-Contini (1970). However, his advertising was his real training ground, an exercise in trade and flexibility that earned him over 100 very successful commercials, already from the early 80s, awarded the Palme d’Or in Cannes and all over the world. The subsequent telephony campaign (“A phone call lengthens life” with Massimo Lopez) and the coffee campaign (with a young Paolo Bonolis) are still cited as examples of creativity at the service of the industry. But Alessandro had cinema in his blood and in 1993 he found his first, authentic cinematic “brother” in Kim Rossi Stuart who directed Without Skin in 1994, winning an unexpected space in the Cannes competition and a Silver Ribbon for screenplay. The partnership continues with I Giardini dell’Eden (1998) in competition in Venice, perhaps his most inspired, fascinating, ambitious work. He will often continue as director, choosing important themes managed with a daily minimalism, an understatement taste for comedy that leads him to discover Fabio Volo (Casomai and La Febbre) or Paolo Bonolis (Commediasexi). His last two feature films are almost invisible today (Sul Mare and The Startup), but they confirm a singular sensitivity to the “long wing of youth” that will make him remembered as an irredeemable Peter Pan of our time. In the meantime D’Alatri had discovered the potential of storytelling in music by putting himself at the service (for successful video clips) of artists such as Renato Zero, Negramaro, Elisa, Laura Pausini, but he kept thinking about cinema and had a new project in his drawer. His latest work was instead a TV series, The Professor with his friend Gassmann, just two years ago. Fate today kidnaps him from his family, but those who love Italian cinema would do well to watch his films again, so ahead of so many ferments of today’s youth.
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