Dec. 3 – “Felicità” is the name of the concert that on Oct. 17-18 brought together at the Crocus City Hall of Moscow the stars of Italian music from the past 40 years (a reunion in honor of Al Bano’s 70th birthday). This event is just the latest example of the appreciation felt for Italian song in Russia. Toto Cutugno, Umberto Tozzi, the Ricchi e Poveri, Matia Bazar, Pupo, Riccardo Fogli, and Gianni Morandi, as well as the beloved couple Romina Power-Al Bano (who shared the stage in Moscow for the first time in 20 years) clearly left their mark. These artists – with their historical hits – made an entire generation dream. And now a documentary recounts the: “Italiani Veri” by Marco Raffaini and Giuni Ligabue. Winner of the Audience Award at the Biografilm Festival of Bologna in 2013, the film will be presented in December 15 at 7pm, at the Italy Russia Association in Milan. The narrative starts at the beginning of the 1960s, when Robertino’s voice, a child prodigy who at the time was only twelve, arrives in the Soviet Union and sells more than 50 million records. His popularity is so great that Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman cosmonaut, asked to hear his songs on the spacecraft, while at a soccer match in Moscow between the USSR and Italy, the speakers of the stadium, before the execution of the national anthems, played a song by Robertino. “Italiani Veri” then presents a series of interviews with major personalities, such as Robertino, Al Bano, Pupo, Toto Cutugno, as well as the Russian singers who collaborated with them, members of Petersburg’s underground scene, journalists, academics and Italian music enthusiasts. The film traces the stages of this success, tracking the causes in the appreciation for Italian culture among the Russian population. Since the 19th century, Russian artists, painters and writers brought Italy to the motherland, and later Italian neorealism arrived to Soviet Russia. (Gil)
