What am I doing here
Marcello Fonte: dreaming of Cannes
S1 • E6 May 13, 2019
What 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.”
