Pietro Castellitto, ‘I forger between Br, Moro and Banda della Magliana’ – Cinema

After the true story of the Casati Stampa marquises, told by Andrea De Sica in the film ‘The eyes of others’, in ‘The forger’ here is that of an equally true character like Antonio Giuseppe Chichiarelli, known as ‘Toni della Duchessa’, an artist and forger who was involved in the Moro case, the Red Brigades and the Banda della Magliana. However, this film, which is screening at the Rome Film Festival today and will arrive on Netflix on January 23rd, is only ‘falsely inspired’ by his figure played by Pietro Castellitto.

In fact, the director Stefano Lodovichi himself underlines: “Forget the truth for a moment, because our Toni played by Pietro Castellitto, an artist and forger who lived in Rome between the 70s and 80s, we have made him a Gascon adventurer, imperfect, at times a boy and unresolved. That is, a character who has little to do with the little and mysterious information that we have received about his real alter ego.” Thus we see in the film, in which the era is well reconstructed, a Toni arriving from the province to Rome together with two friends, a worker (Pierluigi Gigante) and a priest (Andrea Arcangeli). Toni is in Rome with the inspiration to become an artist, but then his romantic encounter with a gallery owner (Giulia Michelini) and his extraordinary talent in being able to reproduce any painting make him become a great forger and also very well paid. In fact, he will also be the one to falsify the Lago della Duchessa statement from the BR as well as to frequent elements of the Banda della Magliana (Edoardo Pesce), secret services and right-wing exponents.

“We were concerned that Toni, rather than representing the original, was rather a metaphor of those times that I didn’t know except through the stories of my father and other people who lived them – says Pietro Castellitto -. How did I imagine them? As a very lively era in which everyone was aware that the world could really be changed. In short, exactly the opposite of today’s world in which we are all resigned. Young people – the actor-director continues – reflects they see their future with pages already written, whereas back then they only had many blank pages in front of them.” And again Castellitto, on his commitment as an actor after his tests as a director: “I generally love being on set, especially with such a beautiful cast of people, it will mean that I will return behind the camera even better.” Finally, director Lodovichi explains: “This is a film that comes from a long gestation, also because I wanted to and was fascinated by telling a good story about this period that great authors like Marco Bellocchio had tackled. I wanted to best represent that world in which young people still had an interest in public affairs and politics.”

‘The Forger’, produced by Cattleya, is inspired by the book ‘The State Forger. A noir cross-section of Rome in the years of lead’ by Nicola Biondo and Massimo Veneziani and has a screenplay by Stefano Lodovichi and Sandro Petraglia. Also in the cast are Aurora Giovinazzo and Claudio Santamaria.

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