(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 01 - It is truly moving that exactly one year after his death (November 2, 2020) which was also his birthday, Gigi Proietti returns to live at least on the screens. A sort of magic that sees him among other things in such a popular and beloved role, like that of Santa Claus, flanked by a great Marco Giallini, never more than in this film totally inside his character as a disenchanted and somewhat forced Roman . I am Santa Claus by Edoardo Falcone arrives in the hall on November 3 with Lucky Red after being a pre-opening event at the Rome Festival and it will not be the only occasion to remember the great Roman performer, to whom a foundation is named today while Edoardo Leo dedicated the beautiful documentary "Luigi Proietti known as Gigi" to him, which will soon be in the hall.
In IO SONO SANTA CLAUS, Ettore (Giallini) is a former prisoner trying to rebuild his life. In prison due to a robbery, the man who has never betrayed his accomplices, now that he is out, wants to continue doing the only thing he can do really well: steal. Out of jail no family ties except his ex-partner Laura (Barbara Ronchi) with whom he had a daughter he never knew.At a certain point, in one of his thefts, he enters the house of Nicola (Gigi Proietti), a very nice elderly gentleman who shows clear signs of identity disorders as he claims to be Santa Claus himself.
The fact is that a strange friendship is created between the two.
Nicola tries somehow to make Hector his heir as Santa Claus, while he only thinks about how to exploit him. Many duets, between Proietti and Giallini, in the sign of the Roman spirit, and a really very Christmas ending.
"What did I learn from Proietti? I learned from him even when I didn't know him, from certain characters you absorb everything, they are always your references - explained Giallini presenting the film -. It was a privilege to spend a lot of time with him, for me it was became like a father. That he was not feeling well was not too clear, when the take started he would get up suddenly and he looked like he was twenty. I often asked him 'how are you? with his irony: 'I live on the mend' ".
In the documentary by Edoardo Leo, his entire family is found: the widow, Sagitta Alter, and her daughters Susanna and Carlotta. "It's a beautiful film, which fully reflects dad, he tells it completely, we are all really very happy about it", says Carlotta.
The project was born by the will of Leo: "In 2018 I had made up my mind to make a documentary on A me gli occhi please, the one-man-show of '76 written by Roberto Lerici. I proposed it to Gigi who replied incredulously : 'A documentary about me?
Then his death.
I stopped and asked the family what to do.
- explains the director - When they gave their consent, I started working on it again but at that point the story of A me gli occhi became something else: the attempt to discover the mystery of an artist capable of combining high and low, of upsetting, sedan the classics by knowing them deeply, uniting the generations.
It was a feat because Proietti did a lot and in the end it was a duty of love ". (ANSA).
