What am I doing here
Life stories
Domenico Iannacone recounts the deepest fragilities of existence: the mind, the mystery of life and death, the need for care and belonging. An intimate look at the true meaning of life.
Where to Watch What am I doing here • Life stories
26 Episodes
- Jago, rebellious sculptor
E1Jago, rebellious sculptorDomenico Iannacone meets one of the most famous and free artists of his generation. Jago is 32 years old and as a child he dreamed of becoming like Michelangelo. He has an exceptional gift: he knows how to sculpt stone like few others. A rebellious student, he left the Academy of Fine Arts to become a freelance sculptor. For him, art is also communication. Hundreds of thousands of people connect on social media to watch him sculpt. His most important work, which depicts Pope Benedict XVI without eyes, has become a sensation in the art world. - A shepherd in the city
E2A shepherd in the cityIn the new episode of “Che ci faccio qui” (What am I doing here?), we meet a man who has decided to stay outside the city while remaining within it. It only takes a few steps from the center of Rome to reach Gregorio's world. Domenico Iannacone takes us into the world of a shepherd, a former professional boxer. A man out of place, non-conformist, detached from the reality that surrounds him, someone who has found his way to freedom together with his dog and his sheep on the quiet outskirts of the capital. - Andrea Camilleri, seeing beyond
E3Andrea Camilleri, seeing beyondJuly 17. Italy mourns the passing of Andrea Camilleri. Domenico Iannacone met him for Che ci faccio qui (What am I doing here). At 93, despite being blind, Andrea continued to invent stories. In an intimate and intense encounter, he leads us into his world and helps us understand how vivid and fertile his imagination is. How we can see beyond, beyond human errors, beyond those of history. Perhaps we just need to close our eyes to understand the message of a man who was able to imagine the future. - A library on three wheels
E4A library on three wheelsIn the age of the Internet and social networks, where everything moves quickly, “Che ci faccio qui” (What am I doing here) takes us on a journey into a story that seems to come from another era. It is the story of a man, a humble retired teacher who decided to take the words printed on paper books and carry them around, bringing them to unknown and forgotten places. What drives Antonio La Cava to travel hundreds of kilometers to bring free books to children and elderly people who are almost illiterate and live in the least accessible villages of Basilicata? Domenico Iannacone climbs aboard his three-wheeled vehicle with him. - Cristina Cattaneo, fragments of ideals
E5Cristina Cattaneo, fragments of idealsCrossing the sea, braving the unknown in inhumane conditions. Carrying only a few objects as reminders of their roots. A report card hidden in the folds of a young boy's jeans has become a symbol of so many broken hopes. Along with him, another 800 human beings were swallowed up by the sea in what has been described as the largest shipwreck of migrants in the Mediterranean: it was April 18, 2015, and a boat sank with its cargo of desperate people. Who are they? Where do they come from? What is their story? In the new episode of “Che ci faccio qui” (What am I doing here), Domenico Iannacone tackles the issue of the nameless dead. Cristina Cattaneo is the medical examiner who, analyzing the few traces left of those bodies, decided to restore the victims' identities in order to provide answers to hundreds of surviving families. - Marcello Fonte: dreaming of Cannes
E6Marcello Fonte: dreaming of CannesWhat am I doing here? It's a question we ask ourselves when something extraordinary happens in life, and it's the same question Marcello Fonte must have asked himself when he received the Palme d'Or at Cannes for best actor. Domenico Iannacone introduces us to his story, that of a boy who grew up in a remote village in Calabria, in shacks built with sheet metal. It was there that Marcello imagined a world that did not exist and dreamed of another life. In Rome, he survives by doing everything: tailor, painter, barber, but his real dream remains cinema. He worked as an extra at Cinecittà until the day Matteo Garrone chose him as the star of his film Dogman. The applause he dreamed of as a child among the tin shacks became a reality in Cannes. Walking among the hollow statues of Cinecittà, Marcello recounts the magic: “But if you're not real,” he says, “you become just another piece of scenery.” - Nino De Masi: a life held hostage
E7Nino De Masi: a life held hostageThere are prisons without bars. Prisons where you are locked up even if you have done nothing wrong. Chains that others put on our wrists to prevent us from moving, to subjugate us. Can you be free in a territory besieged by the 'Ndrangheta? "You make life choices because you want to delude yourself into thinking you are a free man. And in the name of that illusion, you lose your material freedom because, of course, I cannot be free like everyone else," says Nino De Masi, an entrepreneur from Gioia Tauro, who has been threatened, obstructed, and isolated in Calabria. For this reason, he has been living with his family under police protection for over six years, and his company is guarded by the army. This is a stark testimony to how this terrible deprivation of freedom has not prevented De Masi from continuing to dream of a better future for himself and his homeland.